Midnight Run
by cagd
Summary: Buffy encounters a mysterious dark-haired woman in her early forties at The Bronze one night while watching the latest reality programming sensation, "American Spooks", and finds herself unraveling a bit of a mystery on her own as Spike goes yammering on in his insanity about a big pink bear that just ain't there. The sequel to "Night Shift" has arrived.
1. The Man in White

_Offscreen narrator during night time establishing shot of an old house turned business: "Once a month, when the moon was full, a man in white appears somewhere in Missouri." (Camera slowly zooms in on approaching figure) "Nearly seven feet tall, he always has a bag of something slung over one shoulder, worn combat boots quietly padding the pavement on his unseen way to somewhere until a paranormal team of experts finally caught him on tape."_

 _ ***Streetlight cam, 1a.***_

 _Buzzcut blonde hair flecked with pink glitter which shines in the moonlight and a nearby security light. Tuxedo and tails so white they glow, offset by gloves, one pink, one blue and a blood red bow tie._

 _He knocks on the door of the Morse Mill Hotel in Hillsboro, Missouri. A young woman with bobbed hair dressed as a flapper, answers._

 _She giggles, batting her eyes up at him, thinking he is here for the Mill's original "business". Her demeanor goes serious when he says something too low for the microphones set up around the site to catch so that it's just a partial murmur. His voice is a surprising tenor for someone so large._

 _She looks away, nodding sadly as she stands to one side to let the man in as he removes his white top hat with the pink hatband and hangs on the battered hatstand just inside the front door._

 _ ***inner cam, 1b.***_

 _"Thank you for taking her. She may have been born out of wedlock when I was 13, but she's all I have. I love her more than anything. This place isn't… suitable." She told him as they walked through the Piano Room, with her leading slightly._

 _ ***Stairway Cam, 2a***_

 _The man drops the bag to the floor, asking, "What is her favorite animal, or color?"_

 _The woman bit her painted beestung lower lip before quietly answering, "She loves blue things, fluffy things."_

 _He nods, pulling out a blue rabbit plushie with an appallingly red ribbon around its neck. It's unnaturally green eyes stared blankly up at the camera._

 _ ***Cam 2b, unopenable door.***_

 _They disappear inside the door that no one can open, yet the flapper opens it effortlessly._

 _(off camera) "Duuuuuude, we tried every key in the place so we could get in and set up a camera and they just walk in like nothing!"_

 _Announcer: "The following transcript is what was recorded by microphones set up outside the door. We apologize in advance for the poor sound quality."_

 _Still image of previously unopenable door, overlaid with rolling text and distorted recording:_

 _"Where's Janice? She said she would come back." A child's voice._

 _"Rachel darling. You need to understand that she's moved away, and she can't come back."_

 _Sound of small child whimpering._

 _"Please get off of that broken chair, I don't want you to get hurt again."_

 _Solid thump as of feet hitting the floor off camera._

 _A man's voice: "We have a special present for you."_

 _A child's pattering footsteps._

 _"Thank you Mister, he's very fluffy."_

 _ **Quick cut to *Cam 2a, Stairway.***_

 _The man stares directly at the audience through the camera, the un-openable door, which is now shut, frames him. His face ripples like water.  
_

 _"Boys and girls who don't listen don't get treats. No peeking!" This time his voice sounds like two people are trying to speak at once as his bllue gloved hand fills the frame._

 _The screen goes black. What sounds like, "Don't tell Charlie." hisses through the static._

 _Voiceover: "This is the most openly aggressive ghost we've documented to date and the first time we've ever needed to replace a camera after a sighting. "_

 _ **Quick cut to *cam 1b.*, Piano Room.**_

 _The man in white looks away, slings the bag over one broad shoulder and holds out his hand to a formerly unseen blonde child in a shabby dress and sweater wearing scuffed bunny slippers. The flapper joins them as they enter the Piano Room._

 _The trio disappear into the front hallway._

 _ ***Door cam, 1a.***_

 _The child, now rides his other shoulder holding the toy rabbit like a baby. He ducks under the lintel and now stands outside the front door looking down at the flapper, who now appears to be barely sixteen and holds his hat in her hands, nervously turning it 'round and 'round by the brim._

 _The large man stoops. Reluctantly she places the hat upon his head. He straightens, looks down at her, face unreadable and turns away, the child, Rachel sliding down so that he cradles her in his free arm as he walks back into the shadows._

 _There is the sound of a whip, a burst of static, and the screen goes blank, switching to a rainbow test pattern and accompanying flat hum._

Buffy, alone and nursing a fruity drink at the bar fresh from a bit of patrolling after a full shift at the Doublemeat Palace, looked away from the large screen where she'd been smirking at the latest episode of the reality show, _American Spooks_ in time to notice the highly attractive tall dark-haired woman that had been sitting on the stool next to hers hurry towards the ladies room, tears running down her face.


	2. Daddy's Home

_The large man slowly walked into a small room, empty except for a large recliner and a battered floor lamp that gave off a dim radiance, closing the door behind him. After placing his cane beside the door with an unconscious flourish, he removed his top hat in a shower of pink glitter, absently spinning and then catching it so that it rolled from his right hand, up his arm, first over one broad shoulder and then the other before catching it with his left, hanging it and his white tailcoat on a nail driven into the wall beside the door. He stood, surveying the small room in silence before ponderously lowering himself onto the chair, loosening his tuxedo shirt but leaving the tie, which wasn't around the collar of his shirt, but around his neck with oddly short fingers which fumbled clumsily at the buttons._

 _Shirt, vest and cummerbund draped over the back of the easy chair, he bent and removed his worn boots, revealing large feet in equally worn socks. Pushing the boots aside, he leaned back so that the footrest popped up as the back of the chair tilted, and then leaned over the side and picked up a newspaper, only to pause, frowning._

 _Resignedly, the big man set the newspaper aside, stood, retrieved the cane, and lay down on the floor with it clenched in his teeth, dark gaps where his canines should have been, the single jagged line tattooed around both biceps, stark._

 _Suddenly he convulsed, biting down hard on the scarred ebony of the cane, hands clutching blindly, back arched, heels drumming, as blue sparks crackled across his skin. He went limp, blue eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling._

 _Eventually the big man got up, dusting off his now sweat-soaked undershirt and formal trousers. He replaced the cane beside the door before returning to the recliner, leaning backwards so the footrest rose before retrieving the paper from where he'd left it on the floor beside the chair, opening it at random. Two small shadows hesitantly pushed open the door and cautiously scampered across the floor on four (Or was it two?) legs. They paused on the dusty floor looking up at the big man before abruptly jumping up onto the sagging easy chair, to huddle on his lap as if for comfort._


	3. Playtime!

Buffy had all but forgotten the woman at the Bronze from the night before, being too busy the following evening dealing with Spike to think of anything that trivial.

Well, crazy, smelly Spike, not the Spike she remembered who'd just as soon as call you something horrible with brutal honesty even as he undressed you with his eyes while lighting up one of his many cigarettes, or as he called them, "fags".

That Spike had been easy to hate. The current model, not so much once she realized that he wasn't playing.

She'd heard him some time after midnight while patrolling near a small playground in outer suburbia, where the desert and the Mayor's false oasis intermingled. One block to the west and you'd be out in the wastelands. One block east and you'd be in Doublemeat Palace country.

Obviously, Spike had slipped whatever leash that kept him in the High School basement and gone walkabout. Nose wrinkling at the fug he exuded: stale cigarettes and unwashed vampire – she'd paused in her patrolling, the comforting weight of a stake up the sleeve of her jacket, listening to him babble from behind a tree at the edge of the little green space as the full moon rose up over the thinly disguised desert.

Only, Buffy pursed her lips, frowning. That wasn't Spike's derisive near sing-song she heard coming from the direction of the little 1930s playground with it's tempting array of concrete tunnels and swings.

"Bon-Bon, say "Hi!" to our new friend!" The first voice was a light tenor, with an odd, raspy undertone that reminded her of the Doublemeat Palace's drive-in microphone and what it did to her voice when dealing with customers. Buffy made a face. No, not quite. It as if there were two voices going on at the same time, each of them trying to shout the other down, speaking through each other.

Weird. Must be some sort of demony thing she hadn't encountered yet. Maybe whatever it was that was talking had two heads?

"Calm down. Can we please just go back to sleeeeeeeep?" This was a third voice; higher pitched and whiny, like a petulant child's with that metallic drive in microphone undertone.

Three heads? And all three sounded like something out of a cartoon, weird.

"Bon-Bon, say "Hi!" to our new friend!" That cheesy too-happy voice again – like someone trying to convince you that the medicine you're about to have spooned into you that it tastes good when the both of you know very well that it tastes horrible and that you know and the voice on the other end of the spoonful of nastiness knows that lying is okay as long as it gets the job done.

"Let's go back to our stage. Everything is okay, there – I don't like it here!"

"I know you're in here somewhere!" the blended voices cajoled, only one sounded angry. Buffy craned her neck just enough to see around the tree and blinked in surprise at what she saw.

"I'm tiiiiiiiiired. Can we go back to bed?" The smaller, squeakier voice complained.

"Ah-ha!" the larger, double voice exclaimed. "I know you're in here somewhere!" It was the voice of an adult that knows full well where it's target is, but is determined to play the game but only for as long as it has to.

"Calm down Freddy! It's only a little mouse!" The ratty blue puppet at the end of the, "Oh my God, is that a giant teddybear in a pink and white tuxedo?"'s arm flapped its gums a few seconds after dismissing Spike as mere vermin. Buffy pulled back behind the tree, eyes wide in shock.

"No, it can't be!" She peered again. At least she wasn't going to have to deal with something that had three heads. "That's just stupid!"

The light tenor voice lost patience, deepening as it barked, "I see you in the darkness, damn vampire! C'mon out!" Only it came out oddly, the drive-through voice overlaying the more human one so that a few angry words that weren't syrupy party-time words stood out between, "Come out come out wherever you are, birthday boy!"

Buffy pulled back, shaking her head in confusion. "What the hell is going on here?"

She looked again. The thing's face was that of a man, only it rippled like water so that it was also that of a too-jovial teddy bear grinning down at the mouth of the play tunnel with large, square gapped teeth.

Childhood memories, of birthday parties in L.A. before things went all to pieces between mom and dad, of playing video games while eating cheap pizza… of Dawn fleeing, wetting her panties in terror at the approach of a giant, jovial pink and white teddy bear… No. Not that.

She looked one more time.

She had been fourteen, too old for this sort of kid's stuff, but Dawnie was too little to go in by herself…

Dad had given her $50 because he couldn't stand the place… Dawnie had insisted…

While thinking about the new eyeliner she was going to buy with the bribe money, she had looked up into the face of a gigantic pink and white teddy bear that walked like a man…

That face, that tuxedo, the voice… the eyes.

What the Hell was Funtime Freddy doing in a neighborhood park in Sunnydale at one in the morning?

"N-n-n-n-n-nope! No one's home!" Spike's voice echoed hollowly from one of the concrete play tunnels. Gone was the sing-song quality that underlay everything he said like a cat's purr. It had been replaced with a rising shrill note of childish terror. "S-s-s-s-s-sorry, g-g-g-g-gave a-at th-th-thhhhhhhhe off-off-off-office. G-g-g-go AWAY!"

"Bon-Bon, say "Hi" to the birthday boy so we can give him a biiiiiiig surprise!" the voice coming from the chest of the tuxedoed bear, (Or was it a tall man with a painted-on smile?) was now a near snarl as he/ it reached into the tunnel with the hand that wasn't a ratty looking pop-eyed blue bunny rabbit puppet, and dragged out a cowering Spike who quickly curled up into a fetal ball in the harsh light of the security lamp overhead, sobbing, "Go back under the bed where you belong or I'll have nursie beat you to death with the poker!"

"Oooh, there he is!" Again, the puppet's mouth moved out of sync with its squeaky, saccharine voice, "Can we keep him?"

Buffy dodged around the tree as the bear-man one-handedly hauled a yammering Spike upright so that his booted feet barely touched the shredded bark under them, "Put him down!" she yelled.

Funtime Freddy, (Or was it a man?) looked at her with sad blue eyes through a mask of painted-on joy. He, it, shook his head before stepping sideways with Spike into… nowhere to the sound of a single whip crack.

Eyes wide, Buffy skidded to a halt, woodchips scattering around her feet. Panting she looked around. "Where'd they go?" The Slayer scanned the harshly lit playground equipment, the little iron horses on their springs, the swing set, the tunnels. "Nothing, just, _poof!"_

There was a rustling, echoing sound. She turned her head just in time to see a white sleeved arm with a blue gloved hand at the end of it come out of nowhere, pick up a black cane with a brass bear-head at the top that had been leaning against one of the concrete play tunnels, and quickly disappear to the crack of a whip.

Hands outstretched, ready to make a grab, she landed face down on a dusty concrete floor that hadn't been there a few seconds ago.


	4. Changing Channels

Buffy cautiously picked herself up off the floor in the chilly darkness. Up ahead, she saw a dim light and heard the sound of a struggle. Running one hand lightly along the cool, gritty wall beside her, she inched forward, stake at the ready.

Only to quickly step back as something heavy hit the ground at her feet in a writhing mass.

Spike. She should have known.

Her ex was smiling, almost, but not quite what he'd been before his run-in with whatever it was that had sent him gibbering into the High School basement – clearly enjoying the fight with the man, no _bear_ , in the white tuxedo as the two grappled on the floor in the light of a single EXIT sign at the end of the hall.

"Oh, I say, pet," he said conversationally as he and his larger opponent heaved past her, "Sorry, this one's mine. I got here first - you can't have him." He grunted, wriggling out from under the bear man, only to be yanked back into the struggle by the hair with a yell, "On second thought, this show's become quite boring." He gasped, clearly losing. The vampire groped in one of his silent assailant's pockets pulling out a small plastic box about the size of a pack of cigarettes, "I say, so that's where the remote got off to. I wonder what's on the other channels?" Tittering, he pushed the single red button with a lightning bolt on it that adorned its dull black surface, adding "Bound to be more innerestin' than this tripe!"

The large man, bear, whatever, instantly began to convulse, blue sparks covering his body – a gutteral howl like a million gears grinding together escaping him. The electricity arced through Spike so that his hair stood on end and raw current shot out of his elbows and shoulders so that he dropped the box.

Around them in the strobing shadows, smaller figures screeched and writhed and a jerking, spasming body fell out of nowhere, landing heavily beside Buffy where she cowered.

And then as abruptly as it started, it was over.

The Slayer straightened, coughing on the acrid smoke now filling the now dark corridor. She bent and groped for the stake, which she'd dropped when she'd hastily covered her head with her arms, and located its rough, splintery surface with her fingertips. Hefting its reassuring solidity in the darkness as she straightened, she heard something stir and froze.

There was a skritch, followed by a tiny flame and the smell of tobacco smoke. "Well," said Spike from somewhere around the level of her ankles, "'S been a while since I've done THAT." Stunned, Buffy watched him rise to his feet in the dim glow of his cigarette and that of the EXIT sign as it slowly came back on.

Hair smoking, he looked down at the bear/man and booted it thoughtfully, "Hmmmmm. If you'll excuse me, I simply must water the penguins for my mother or they'll wilt. Mummy wouldn't like it, you know. It throws off the rest of her year _entirely."_

And with this, he ran off down the corridor, laughing, leaving Buffy to deal with something that probably wasn't in any of Gile's rare books.


	5. Nice doggie! (Ummmm, maybe?)

The smaller ones were the first to stir. Buffy backed away cautiously as they unsteadily rose from around where the big man bear lay curled up on his side in the miasma of burnt plastic, his back to her.

As the Slayer watched, what had the outline of a small child pulled itself upright and tottered toward him, making softly metallic cooing sounds, urgently patting at him as he unsteadily sat up, pointing at her. Others rose, cats, foxes, bunnies, more small children, surrounding him, urgently chattering while anxiously huddling against him as he slowly pushed himself to his knees, arms limp at his side, hands resting on the floor, head down.

Eventually he/it shook his/its head, outline blurring between a man with a blonde buzzcut and a huge, clumsy toy bear before settling somewhere in-between: a man's face flickering behind a grinning clown's as he pulled himself upright, patting and giving quick reassuring hugs to the smaller… things surrounding him, clinging to him even as he rose so that there was one perched on his broad shoulders as he cradled the one that had approached him first in one large arm against his hip in the drifting acrid smoke.

Whatever it was, rested it's head against his broad shirtfront, eyes closed, sucking it's thumb, free hand stroking his arm as if for reassurance. Buffy edged back, cross trainers grating against the gritty floor.

All of them looked at Buffy at once, their sudden silence broken by a whimper of protest as the big man cautiously set the strange child with candy blue bunny ears between her blue-black pigtails down behind him. Whatever it was slid down off his shoulder as he gestured them back with his left hand, as he picked up the ebony cane with his right while assuming a wary crouch between them and the Slayer.

Buffy stepped forward, raising her free hand, "What is this—"

He made a noise like a broken music box, mouth moving long after the sound stopped and the children, if that's what they were ran down the hall behind him, their light echoing footsteps the only sound. His blue eyes flickered appraisingly up and down Buffy before he broke into an odd, crouching sideways backwards run that she'd occasionally seen Riley use, cane held at the ready, eyes wary, leaving Buffy alone in the gloomy hallway.

"…place?" she added lamely, her hands dropping at her sides, stake dangling limply as she watched the big man's shadow quickly disappear around a bend in the corridor.

A smaller man in a stained, torn rent-a-cop uniform walked soundlessly up behind Buffy and stood beside her without her even noticing it before lightly touching her on the shoulder.

"Like, boo." He said casually. Buffy jumped with a startled exclamation and backed off, stake once again at the ready as she took in his shaggy brown hair, dark eyes, a pair of small, alert looking dog's ears, and oh my God, was that a tail?

"Chill, babe, like _chill_. I see you just met our resident teddy bear and his playmates. Don't worry, they like, don't bite— _much."_ Tail wagging, the man grinned, like a little dog Buffy'd known as a small child, but the smile didn't reach his eyes, which had no whites. "And I see your boyfriend just learned not to poke a candy-colored bear."

"He's NOT my boyfriend." Buffy said as she looked this bizarre creature up and down. He had the same flickering effect to him, which made Buffy's eyes water even more than the dissipating smoke did.

"Really?" the man dog said, surprise in his voice, which had the same echoing metallic quality to it as the bear man's. Only there were no words in between words so his Slacker's mumble was fairly easy to understand.

Sort of.

He continued, "Then there's a chance that a dude like me and a…"

Buffy cut him off abruptly, "Not in the market for a boyfriend right now – too much work!"

"Whoa, peace. Peace!" There was no disappointment in the man dog's face as he abruptly sat down, one booted foot idly rising towards one ear and with a difficult move for a normal human body, began scratching behind it to the jingle of the metal tags on the studded red collar around his neck. "Oh God, oh God! Like that feels sooooooo gooooood – try it some time, babe!" Tongue out and panting, he dropped his foot, and crouched staring up at her, ears cocked alertly like something escaped from a poorly drawn cartoon. "I'm Jeremy Fitzgerald. Shake?" He extended a hand towards Buffy, or was it a large, rough paw? Buffy knelt and took it, bemusedly wondering that were she were to roll over all of a sudden, she'd wake up on the floor of her room beside her bed in the house on Revello Drive with all it's problems and debts even as she tumbled faster and faster down the rabbit hole.

"So, _Jeremy Fitzgerald_ , what the hell is this place?" she asked gesturing around them with the hand that held the stake. Where had she heard that name before?

The dog man sank back on his haunches, dark eyes darker, saying, "Hell."

Buffy, who'd been, since she awoke one morning as the Slayer, in any number of places claiming to be that place, simply said, "Oh."

"Naaaahhhh, just yankin' your chain, babe. It's really Circus Baby' Pizza World Entertainment, aaaaaand—" Doing jazz hands, the man dog rose to his feet, Buffy following him. "Rental Center!" he finished with a sharp-toothed grin that stretched almost up to the floppy ears framing his face and a Vanna White style flourish.

"Ennywho, like I said, (if you speak punched-in-the-mouth-by-angry-metal-bear) I'm Jeremy Fitzgerald. A.k.a. Shaggy Dog and the big sorry asshole that pulped your boyfriend before your boyfriend picked his pockets and sent all of us screaming to the floor is "Funtime Freddy"." He looked at her, again, head cocked, tongue lolling like a dog's, adding: "So, um, like, what exactly are _you_ doing here?"

"I have no idea." Was all Buffy could think of saying, eyes fixed on Jeremy's inhuman teeth.

He closed his jaws abruptly with a snap, "Watch it 'round Freddy. He never got over dying. Not like me."

"Huh?" Startled, Buffy backed away, stake ready – teeth like that belonged in a vampire's mouth, only his face wasn't the usual vamp game face, "What the hell are you talking about?"

Jeremy, the Shaggy Dog, crouched back down, foot readying itself to do it's thing, "Like I said, babe, Freddles never got over dying like I did. Asperger's a bitch when nobody but you acknowledges it – it's easier being a dog." Abruptly he stood, sat back down, rolled over, and went to sleep.

Or that's what it looked like until he cracked one eye open and gazed up at her, "You're boyfriend's wandering around in here completely out of his mind – I'd go looking for him and get the hell out of here once you find him. Baby doesn't like strangers." The eye slammed shut, and the dog man began to snore.

Pointedly

"He's NOT my boyfriend, and… Baby?" Tucking the stake into the back of her waistband, Buffy looked around her before she started jog-trotting in the direction she'd last seen Spike heading,

"Who's Baby?" drifted behind her, quickly fading into the gloom of the hallway

A small figure with pig tails and a short skirt came pattering out of the dark on stumpy legs. It paused at the dog man, staring down at him with blank, glowing green eyes before continuing to where the box with the red button on it had been pushed against the wall and forgotten in the struggle.

It studied the box for a few moments, picked it up in one unexpectedly fluid motion, placed it in a small plastic purse over one shoulder, and pattered back where it came from, giggling.


	6. Static

Buffy found herself wandering through a literal maze of what turned out to be salt-walled corridors for what might have been hours, occasionally hearing Spike's laughter, now close, almost on top of her, and then unaccountably far away seconds later. She'd learned the hard way that the walls and even the floor, were made from salt because she'd just tripped over an extension cord that somebody'd stretched across the hallway from an outlet and then under a closed door directly across from it – sending her flying faced down onto the gritty floor.

Groaning, she stood up, the knees of her yoga pants ripped and her knees bleeding as what she'd at first mistaken for sand dissolved in her mouth, flooding it with salt water. Nauseated, she spat, startled to see that what hit the floor between her feet was dark red.

She'd also bitten her tongue.

Well, isn't THAT just peachy.

Raking her hair back from her eyes where it'd escaped her ponytail, Buffy paused at the door.

It was the first door she'd seen aside from isolated light fixtures and EXIT signs pointing to no actual EXIT.

It wasn't much of a door; there was no sign on it that said, "Open Me" or anything like that. In fact it was a really boring door: putty-colored painted steel, a little dented, a regular doorknob – in other words, the kind of door you might see in a school, or an office building.

"Maybe," Buffy thought hopefully as she turned the knob expecting for it to be locked, "It's the little girl's room, I sure hope so because it's been hours!"

Only it wasn't.

The little girl's room.

But then again, at least it wasn't a disguise for a gaping bottomless pit.

No, it was a plain room, not all that large, not all that small. In the dim light spilling in from the hall, she made out a nail driven into the salt of the wall which supported the doorframe, a bare, dusty floor, a tangled heap of brightly painted little broken chairs like the ones you'd see in a kindergarten, a large, no _huge_ easy chair, and a lamp, unlit.

Aaaaand, it wasn't a restroom. Damn.

Not wanting to risk splinters in her behind from one of the broken too-small chairs, or even from one of the middle-sized chairs (which had little half desks on them, again, like something you'd see at a school, which were covered with old gum and graffiti on the undersides) Buffy parked it on the huge chair, suddenly feeling very, very small as she reached over and switched on the battered floor lamp, whose cord snaked out the door and across the hall so that she could examine her skinned knees.

Not that Buffy could do anything about them until she could figure out where the EXIT to this human-sized rat maze was.

Anyway, Spike could take care of himself, as far as she was concerned.

Feet dangling high above the floor, she checked out the damage. Well, so much for those pants, and she'd just bought them! Buffy leaned back, feeling as if she was a very little girl once again, sitting in her father's chair waiting for him to come home from work at the end of a very, very long day.

The Slayer didn't realize that she'd dozed off until she heard the door open, minutes, perhaps hours later. She sat frozen in the huge chair as the large man? Bear? Entered, leaning his cane against the wall beside the door before hanging up his hat and coat, loose formal trousers concealing oddly shaped legs.

No, they were straight, like a man's.

No, they were slightly bent, and thick, like a bear's.

What was going on here?

Buffy scooched down in the chair, hoping that she hadn't been seen, preparing to vault over the back if she had to in order to escape.

Tensing, she scooched even further down as he approached, face all shifting blankness as he fumbled awkwardly at the buttons of his shirt after loosening his pink cummerbund and vest, his blue eyes the only living thing about him.

Finally the large man stopped, and glowered down at her, still in his undershirt and trousers, dress shirt, vest and cummerbund over one arm, the other loose at his side.

Startled, Buffy squeaked. She hadn't seen how he'd gone from undressing beside the door and now he was almost on top of her. Good God, not only was he unbelievably fast, he was as big as Riley, no, ADAM!

And she'd been lucky to have walked away from Adam with her arms and legs where she'd found them the morning before their encounter, "Jeepers, I've done it now, and all for a chair that was just right!" was all she could think, hands preparing to lever her up and over the back of the chair before he could start anything.

But no, he simply reached over her to hang his clothing on the back of the easy chair. Bright red tie around his neck and matching suspenders loose around his waist, he stepped back and knelt on the floor at eye level with her, blue eyes intent, the twin jagged lines tattooed around his upper biceps stark in the lamp glow.

Face and form shifting and then stabilizing, the big man opened his mouth as if to say something only to shut it abruptly with an audible snap but not before Buffy noticed that his canines were missing, top and bottom, which was weird. He couldn't have been more than twenty five, maybe thirty under the wash of confused features that had earlier rippled across his face and upper body. He opened his mouth once more, again that grating noise, like static on the radio during a thunderstorm while raising one hand, which was missing the first joints so that the ends looked raw as if someone had methodically removed them at the knuckle without bothering to bandage them, reached for her, pulled back, tugged at the bow tie around his thick neck which wasn't a bow tie but a leather dog collar, before dropping to what looked like a grill from a car stereo set directly in the flesh of his upper chest as another grating sound came out of it.

He tapped it, mouth working soundlessly before standing, back to her, frustration radiating in all directions. Buffy eased forward, feet questing for the floor, thinking she could make a break for the door around him while he appeared distracted, only to fall back against the worn back of the easy chair as he spun, and leaned into her face, both large hands, the fingers of his other hand also strangely amputated, mouth working, that horrible sound emanating from the speaker in his chest.

Finally he relaxed, eyes closed as he sank back on the heels of his worn combat boots before her, head down. One of his butchered hands fumbled at his neck again, avoiding the dog collar disguised as a bow tie. Slowly he pulled something from around his neck and without making eye contact, held something on a long beaded chain out to Buffy, who hesitantly reached for it.

His surprisingly cool, slick mutilated hands gently closed over hers, folding her unresisting fingers around it before he rose, stepped back, and without looking at her walked out the door to the endless hallway and closed it behind him.

Heart pounding, Buffy sat there wide-eyed, feet high above the floor, holding whatever it was he'd given her.

Eventually the Slayer opened her hands to see that a set of dog tags rested cooly upon her palms. Frowning she turned them over so that they read correctly, "Schmidt, Michael J., USMC".

"They ripped out his tongue, you know." The pop-eyed rabbit puppet draped across the arm of the chair beside her raised it's head, adding conversationally, "And the programming of the bear they stuffed his body in to hide it has no word for him."

Buffy screamed, dropping the tags.


	7. The Doorman

"Hello. I'm Bon-Bon. Are you the birthday girl?" It cocked its head at her. Its lower jaw flopped open vacantly, revealing small square teeth.

Wordlessly meeting Buffy's eyes, the large man, no, "Michael" pushed the jaw back into place with one large, truncated finger.

The starring contest was getting awkward.

Finally, Buffy surrenndered, breaking the silence: "Michael?"

He frowned, shaking his head.

"Uhhhh…. Mike?"

He quietly nodded, the puppet covering his left hand echoing the movement.

Eyes traveling up his seven feet of height, Buffy held out a tentative hand, like a child meeting Santa Claus at the mall for the first time. "I'm Buffy." The man stared down at it. "Buffy Summers…. And you are… Mike, then?" she finished lamely, thrusting her hand into her hoodie pocket.

Mike's blue eyes glinted in his rippling, impassive face for a few seconds and then he sang down at her in a child's voice "Can't wait to meet you, join the animatronic family." He pulled a carrot shaped sugar cookie out of a pocket, and fed it to Bon-Bon, who crunched it loudly, spewing crumbs onto the unswept floor with obvious Cookie Monster level enjoyment, adding, "Come get to know me…"

The blue bunny puppet finished the snack and squinted at her with its grotesque pop eyes. "He just said "Hello" back, if that means anything to you."

"Oh." Was all Buffy could think of saying. Mike had returned to the windowless little room carrying a First Aid kit a few minutes earlier, placing it on the chair arm beside the loquacious puppet before picking up the nasty little thing and sliding it onto his hand.

"He also wants you to sit down so he can look at your knees." The puppet shrugged, "Don't know why. They look all knobby and gross to me!"

Buffy, who'd vaulted out of the chair the second the horrid thing had spoken to her, stake at the ready, briefly forgot the absurdity of the entire situation and said indignantly, "My knees are not all knobby and gross. They are very cute… my boyfr-… ummm, everybody says so!"

The puppet sniggered, "If you say so." in an eye-rollingly derisive tone. Mike frowned and swatted the puppet before yanking it off and stuffing the protesting little horror into a pocket before gesturing once more that she sit down.

Buffy edged back onto the chair, slipping the stake up her sleeve with a practiced gesture that Mike's eyes followed without comment. He looked up into her face and she nodded, frowning slightly. Those eyes, where had she seen those eyes before? As Buffy searched her memory, Mike clumsily opened the kit while Bon-Bon, only it's ears and eyeballs sticking out of his hip pocket, gave a snarky running commentary in a high, scratchy voice which Buffy did her best to ignore as she slowly began to recall the last time she'd been in one of FazCorp's kiddie entertainment palaces.

 _Though she'd enjoyed the noisy, cheesy place when she was little, at fifteen, Buffy found the experience of keeping an eye on Dawnie at Circus Baby's Pizza World to be totally mortifying - like, what if somebody she knew SAW her? Worse, she was only two weeks out of the facility her now separated parents had placed her in not long after she'd burned down her school because they didn't know what was going on and she wasn't about to tell them what had really happened because who'd believe her?_

 _Eight year old Dawnie had run giggling and shrieking into the video game room, leaving Buffy to loiter at the door, trying to think about the eyeliner and shoes she was going to buy with dad's fifty dollar bribe to distract herself from the constant noise and motion of the place. There had been a mechanical ballerina thing that only knew one dance move (As if!) and a horrid little girl thing with red pigtails that squirted ice cream out of her chest (Ewwwwwwww.) wandering around, and a cheesy-looking fox in colors that Nature never intended (Tacky!)._

 _And then there had been the bear._

 _The bear gave her the wiggins, straight up. It's huge clumsy, tuxedo-clad bulk had held the front door open while greeting them in a tinny, canned voice all full of shiny happy cheerfulness that when Buffy was eight would have enchanted her, but at fifteen and off her meds because dad said she didn't need them, the whole package set her teeth on edge._

 _Especially when it's blue eyes had looked directly into hers as it held the front door for her and her little sister, ushering them in with gallant courtesy, white top hat rolling across it's broad shoulders, to be caught in one big clumsy paw with an elaborate flourish before being placed back between its pink and white ears, eyes boring in to hers with intense, um, rage? Terror? Pain?_

 _Worse the thing had smelled. Bad._

 _Like dead mouse behind the school radiator bad. Like squirrel street pizza on a hot day bad._

 _Why didn't anybody else seem to notice something was clearly wrong with the thing but her?_

 _The other wandering characters had smelt similar, only not as intensely – Buffy avoided them as she nervously shadowed the enthusiastic Dawn who was heading for a sugar crash. Why hadn't she noticed this before during all those high-end birthday parties in the years before Merrik had barged into her not so perfect but perfect enough, life and changed everything?_

 _The bear appeared once more; this time walking right up to her and handing her a single blood red balloon when nobody else got one, gabbling pre-recorded platitudes, painted blue eyes boring into her as she squirmed with embarassment. The thing was horrible. Why was it bothering her?_

 _Later, Buffy'd sat with Dawnie on her lap in the crowded little theatre, the once delightful to a child but now lame-o to a young adult animatronics stood up on the stage, soooooooo fake! Belting out tinny pop rip-offs in fake plastic voice, the horrible bear had stood tall upon the stage, staring down at her from behind a microphone with a cut and dangling cord, lower jaw flapping vacantly, while the other animatronics flailed away at instruments that weren't even plugged in. Eyes that stared at her and her alone in the crowd of amped up pre-teens and their frazzled parents, pleading, angry, frightened, "Let me out!" they seemed to say, "Let me out!"_

 _And Buffy had stood up, screaming, and she couldn't stop screaming and the music had stopped and everyone had pulled away, and Dawnie was crying, and somebody had called the paramedics and she heard her parents fighting outside the hospital room where they'd put her, yelling at each other, "Hank, how could you? She's only been out of treatment for less than a month and to put her in that environment without her meds just because your mother says kids these days are overmedicated? Where is your brain, Hank?"_

 _And it had all been her fault._

Buffy looked down at the one second a large pink and white bear, the next a large man with a painted on smile and pink glitter in his buzzcut as he bent over her skinned knees, attempting to clean them with a peroxide soaked gauze pad after he'd spilled half the bottle on the floor with clumsy hands, and tentatively laid one of her's on what felt like cold, slick plastic, though her eyes told her differently, "That was you back when I was fifteen, wasn't it?"

Mike looked up at her and nodded, face stabilizing somewhere between painted on smile and a man somewhere in his late twenties or early thirties who'd seen too much. The speaker in his chest grated slightly, perhaps meaning "Yes".


	8. Intermission

_For a large man, Michael J. Schmidt had been invisible most of his life. The child of an indifferent single mother who dumped him on his grandparents at the age of three months, he'd been passed from household to household after his grandparents became too infirm to look after him not long after his twelfth birthday. Easily mistaken for fourteen, even fifteen, Mike was soon put up for adoption once it became clear that nobody in his own family was interested in making his residency permanent._

 _The problem was, though blonde and blue eyed, he painfully learned that the older you get, the faster your market value drops when babies are all the rage, regardless of skin color, or lack thereof. From there, he was shuffled from foster home to foster home until he turned 18 and was abruptly told by the Missouri Department of Social Services that he was on his own._

 _Introverted but smarter than anybody realized, he'd somehow managed to finish high school despite being moved to three different districts in his senior year with a solid B+ average. Good at sports when he could stay anywhere for more than a month at a time, he took advantage of his unexpected scholarships and played football and basketball for a small State run technical college, majoring in Aircraft Maintenance, a good student and athlete but nothing special, preferring to fade into the background, occasionally going home with a roommate over the holidays, to sit uncomfortably off to the side watching someone else's family interact by the Christmas tree until it was time to go back to the dorms._

 _Good, but not good enough to make it in professional sports, he drifted into the Marines at the age of nineteen with the vague idea of becoming a Harrier pilot, only to be shot down because he was simply too big. With nothing better to do and a shaky economy, he'd allowed the recruiter to pick something out, learning much to his surprise that he'd been slated for law enforcement._

 _Which proved a good, though unexpected match._

 _For once in his life, Mike knew exactly where he was supposed to be, exactly what he was supposed to do, exactly what he was supposed to wear, exactly where he was supposed to sleep, and there was always enough to eat (always a problem in his foster care days). His size was an advantage off the football field and on the job as he climbed up the ladder, taking on more and more responsibility: the work was hard but interesting, even in the Middle Eastern sandpile or aboard ship. So when his first tour was up and anticipating a promotion to Captain, he re-upped, intending to make a career of it, having finally found the home he'd always wanted and a girlfriend, even if she'd been the one to make the first move. Despite his intimidating size and extreme professionalism as an MP, Michael J. Schmidt was painfully shy._

 _But he had time, lots of time._

 _And then it had crashed down around his ears. All it had taken was one stupid bus accident in Germany while on leave visiting friends. He'd tried to help, blew out his back, and that was it._

 _Cashiered._

 _After an honorable medical discharge, he drifted until savings depleted and jobs scarce, he'd noticed a blind ad in the L.A. Times, near the bottom of the page. Somebody needed an indoor after hours security guard, no experience needed. All he'd have to do was sit and watch a bank of monitors for a week, with the possibility of full time employment at minimum wage, no health plan._

 _It was either that or McDonald's, and he'd had enough of standing outside club doors with his arms folded telling rich drunken assholes that if they weren't on the list, they weren't coming in while their half-naked coked-up girlfriends vomited on his boots._

 _And it's not like he had anybody to go home to back in the Missouri bootheel._

 _Back to couch surfing, something he hadn't done since his teens, severely depressed, starting to get out of shape and badly hung over, he applied without bothering to mention his bad back, figuring if he was careful, they'd never find out should they hire him._

 _Two days later they hired him on sight._

 _The next morning, he was dead._

 _And nobody noticed._


	9. Checkerboard

"Oh my God, I was right the day I scared Dawnie half to death!"

The bear man, man bear's face flickered, eyes darting nervously as his large paws, or were they hands? closed gently but firmly down over Buffy's.

They were cold, hard, but Buffy let him as she gathered her riccocheting thoughts, finally asking in her confusion. "What are you... I MEAN, what happened the day I flipped out in front of all of those people. No, I mean, what are you... I mean, what _happened_ to you?"

He quickly let go of her hands and rising, moved away shaking his head, flickering back and forth between forms, kicking over the bottle of peroxide so that it foamed along the path of the spill, bubbling red along the freshly revealed worn black and white checked tiles, flat, hard static roaring out of the speaker in his chest.

Backing away, Buffy slipped the stake into her hand as she rose out of the battered easy chair - she could take him down if she had to, but aside from Dog Boy, who else other than this, this _thing_ , would be able to lead her out of here, maybe even track down Spike, whose laugh suddenly echoed loudly in all directions before Dopplering away behind her?

The creature stopped, swaying, staring down at her, eyes empty, "What happened to you?" Only the voice wasn't his, it's, but Buffy's echoing back at her.

Buffy backed up again so that her back was against the gritty wall, "I'm supposed to be the one asking that!" she replied nervously, "What HAPPENED to YOU?"

Instead of answering, the man bear, bear man snatched up the cane and ran clumsily out into the hallway, footsteps rapidly running away into the maze as Spike's laugh Dopplered in towards her from somewhere to her left and then her right and then the light went out.


	10. Toys in the Attic

_Circus Baby had NOT liked the large new toy Charlie sent her at first._

 _No, not at all._

 _The large new toy was a big disappointment._

 _Circus Baby had expected a lot of fun with this large new toy, that the large new toy would last a while, that the large new toy would give her and the children a merry chase through the dark carnival that was "Circus Baby's Pizza World", Circus Baby's private kingdom come one minute past midnight._

 _The large new toy let her down with the new playmates she'd sent to greet him: when the large new toy tried to run, he screamed untouched, holding his back, falling to his knees, gasping with pain._

 _Circus Baby was so disappointed she'd turned away, letting the children do as they pleased as the large new toy lay screaming and unable to move as they held him down to pull trifling pieces of meat from him, first his ears, then his tongue, and then lower, lower in a sudden spurt of blood – those screams had been extremely gratifying to Circus Baby._

 _So she'd allowed the children to stuff the large new toy into a suit as what was left of it lay curled up all bleeding and weeping in a sludge of blood, vomit and excrement, unable to move._

 _Only the large new toy had been too big. So they got out the bear._

 _Even the bear wasn't big enough until they made the large new toy fit, breaking his arms and legs one bone at a time as his blue eyes glazed over, crumpling him, folding him, biting off his fingers and his toes, packing away all the leftover bits before standing back and laughing at him as they activated it._

 _The expression in the large new toy's eyes as the endoskeleton slowly slammed shut made up for Circus Baby's disappointment - individual pieces of titanium killing what was left of him by inches – the large new toy had made a lovely pet after all, so Circus Baby personally put a red collar around his neck._

 _A red collar that made the large new toy,_ _her own personal dancing bear,_ _prance and caper to her dark heart's delight, easing Circus Baby's boredom – Circus Baby was frequently bored._

 _So as a mark of special favor, Circus Baby knocked out the large new toy's sharpest teeth because it amused her._

 _As to no fun and games that week, there would be others._

 _Charlie always saw to that._

 _Charlie never disappointed._

 _She'd given Circus Baby the lovely box with the button on it and the collars, hadn't she?_

 _Those were lovely toys. Oh, such lovely toys indeed!_


	11. St Catherine's Wheel

Buffy suddenly found herself tipping over backwards as the floor washed out from under her with a hissing, sizzling sound as if she were on the beach as the tide came in, pulling what she was standing on out from under her clockwise, grain by grain spiraling away even as she stood on solid ground.

Without thinking, the Slayer looked down at her feet and saw more of the syrupy dark red foam slopping around the soles of her cross-trainers despite the whilrling pitch-blackness surrounding her. "Gross! Gross! Gross!" she yelled, stepping backwards in disgust, slipping on the bloody froth, falling on her belly as it washed away the dirty black and white tiles that she shouldn't be able to see in the darkness surrounding her grain by grain by grain…

…Buffy clawed desperately against the slippery, gritty surface, only to slide faster and faster backwards towards the center of the draining maelstrom, flailing her arms wildly, fighting to get to safety as the floor relentlessly dissolved beneath her, hissing particles draining downward into the abyss in a spiral. Things began to slide around her, first the easy chair, then the lamp in a shower of blue sparks followed by a stack of newspapers, which flew open like so many pale birds as they cascaded past her into nothing. Floundering, Buffy dropped the stake, tipping sideways as a sudden torrent of little brightly painted chairs tumbled away from her sideways… overhead, upside down, sending her into the whirling darkness...

...hair whipping out of it's ponytail, Buffy had no time to scream, bouncing off of the sleeping Jeremy as she plummeted. The dog man rolled over in the whistling darkness, and opened one eye as she spun past saying reproachfully, "You really pissed Mike off big time. Now it's all falling apart and we'll have to rebuild! Thanks a fucking lot for the extra work, _bitch!"_ he began to snore, all four of his legs lazily pedaling as if pursuing a rabbit in a dream...

...to be replaced by an avalanche of more of little chairs and the student desk with all the gum on the bottom as Buffy found herself slamming through a drift of random plushies: rabbits, foxes, teddy bears, and chickens bounding away from her in her endless fall, a ballerina tumbling end over end in eternal pirouette all to the tinkling gurgle of a dying music box…

…coming face to face with a small girl with red pigtails and green eyes wearing a red tutu, only it was a giant windup toy that clawed at Buffy's face with razor sharp demon's claws, laughing with a mouth like a bear trap which closed down on her arm before she could shove it away from her in their shared, vertiginous tumble…

…only to plummet past a tall man in a white tuxedo (No, it was a uniform.) with pink glitter in his hair who stood ramrod straight as they orbited each other, cane a spinning blur in his pink and blue gloved hands, painted on smile bleeding down his chin and exposed teeth and gums as he paused to open his mouth, displaying a bloody nub where a tongue should have been, stopping the black cane which was really a cop's kitana, or was it a rifle? blue eyes intently meeting Buffy's...

...only to meet the ground face up, hard enough to knock the wind out of her in a loud whooping gasp…

…as the sun rose over the little park in outer suburbia, the stake landing beside her with a clatter, snapped in two.

 _All Lt. Commander Raina Dashinsky knew was that the girl she'd sat next to at the bar in The Bronze two nights ago appeared without warning ten feet over the spot on the playground she'd been intently watching after having seen someone she thought she once knew disappear into thin air half past midnight._

 _She knew this because the girl landed on her._

 _Hard._


	12. The Crazed Squirrel of Love

_It wasn't that Mike didn't like girls._

 _He liked them._

 _A lot._

 _However, he'd learned not to get terribly attached to anyone, his learned shyness the consequence of:_

 _a.) having discovered early in life that, though his grandparents loved him, he was unplanned and inconvenient, and_

 _b.) never knowing how long he was going to be in any given situation before becoming somebody else's problem – something made painfully clear to him at the age of fifteen when the very nice young professional couple out to adopt who'd taken a liking to him, decided at the last minute that they'd rather bring a baby girl in from China because they wanted a child they could watch grow up. As much as they liked Mike, well, Mike was too old._

 _In other words, if you don't want to get hurt, don't get attached._

 _If you don't get attached, you won't get hurt, which meant he'd taken care of any urges that arose as impersonally as possible in order to protect himself, but Raina Dashinsky had been different._

 _No, she was amazing._

 _A six footer in her bare feet and a Navy brat, she was Academy commissioned and was one of the few female Navy helicopter pilots around, even if she was stuck doing cargo and mail runs when what she really wanted to was fly combat, because of, (in her words), "dumbass regs 'n shit"._

 _Raina was intelligent, had a sense of humor, and easily held her own in a male dominated profession without resorting to special snowflake tactics to get her way, and Mike had met her while checking out weird scratching noises behind the wall in officer billeting at Miramar._

 _Flat on the floor and armed with only a small flashlight, Mike had cautiously stuck his head through an open access panel by the baseboard of the old building, when suddenly he realized that he wasn't the only body occupying the cramped space. There she was, in there with him, a total stranger with a dazzling smile. No, it was the helicopter pilot he'd ticked earlier in the day for tailending a pickup truck right in front of him with her motorcycle._

 _Startled, Mike banged his head on a water pipe, "Why the hell's an MP laying on the floor sticking his head in a hole in the wall?" she'd asked as his head spun._

 _Gobsmacked, Mike stared at her, only to bang his head a second time as a squirrel flew out of the darkness at him, big as a pit bull and twice as hairy before it scrambled over his head, down his neck, and into his shirt, angrily chattering the whole time._

 _"It's my job. What the hell are YOU doing sticking YOUR head in MY hole in the wall?" he'd barked, blood trickling down his forehead and into his eyes from where his scalp had made abrupt contact with the pipe as he hurriedly pulled his uniform shirt off over his head as Screwy the Squirrel ran laps inside while Raina tried to unbutton it. He'd hurled the varmint garment away from him and his small assailant ran out of one sleeve, sounding like a toy machine gun. The two of them chased the psycho tree rat up and down the hall and ceiling before Mike had the presence of mind to open to outside door and herd Screwy out onto the sidewalk by waving his shirt at it. Later Mike swore the thing faced him, stood upright, and exposed it's shockingly large junk at him while flipping him the bird before taking cover under a nearby car to scream squirrel obscenities at him._

 _"It looked interesting in there, so I said "Why not?" Raina said, looking him up and down with a big grin as he pulled his shirt back on. She then handed him a tissue from a side pocket in her flight suit, "And holy shit, I was right! Anyway, Dashinsky, Lt. J.G. Raina Dashinsky. If you ever need a ride, I'm the one to give it to you – that and the U.S. Mail, spare parts, fighter pilots – just tell me where you want 'em– I deliver!" Dark hair in rooster tails and full of dust bunnies, she'd stuck out a hand and he'd shaken it, not exactly knowing what to say other than his name, MOS, and pay grade._

 _"Guess if I ever need a pest controlled, you're the guy!" She shot back at him over one shoulder as she swaggered away, flight helmet under one arm, leaving Mike with the abrupt realization that he'd just been shamelessly hit upon._

 _As for Lt. J.G. Raina Dashinsky, she'd noticed Mike earlier while he was directing morning traffic. The unexpected baby girl in a family of six much older brothers and raised by a career Navy father who'd tossed Raina into the fray at the age of two after his wife died of breast cancer, Mike suddenly stood out of the background of randomly moving khaki, blue, or camo man-shaped objects in Raina's life the second he'd flashed her a smile from behind his aviators from the middle of the intersection. That wasn't the only thing that caught her eye: Mike moved with an intense, unconscious grace as he masterfully waved and halted the dawn rush. It wasn't a fussy, fiddly dance, but one seen in the confident motions of a Clydesdale, a bull, or a tiger – and those HANDS! Blushing for the first time in a long time, Raina was so busy wondering what it would be like to have those hands touch her so that when the hot cop signaled that it was her side's turn, she abruptly tail-ended the truck in front of her, bending the front fender of her dad's old Harley-Davidson shovelhead and scraping up their bumper._

 _So the hot cop gave her a ticket. Only she was too busy looking him over to really notice, thinking, "My God, he's tall!", and then, "Those are the bluest eyes I've ever seen!", followed by, "Wonder if he's seeing anybody?" while shoving the ticket in one of her side pockets before making it to work with five minutes to spare._

 _Seeing him a few hours later on the floor of her billet had been pure catnip._

 _Mike found himself still contemplating this anomaly after applying most of a bottle of Bactine to the scratches all over his upper body in the cop shop locker room when Raina plonked her tray and then herself down across from him in the Officer's Mess during lunch. "Thought I'd grab a bite while I had the chance. This seat taken?"_

 _Even if it had, Mike doubted this would have mattered to Lt. Dashinsky._

 _So what? He found himself enjoying her company while pounding down a second helping of the Mess's latest UFO (Unidentified Fried Object – the menu board said veal cutlet, but Mike had serious doubts)._

 _As Raina got up to dump her tray on her way out, she invited him to join her and some friends that evening for a game of touch football. Because the game was on the route of his usual solo evening run, he'd shown up after work, not knowing that by the time many girls pined after the latest Barbie Dream House, she'd already knocked out the front teeth of a popular girl for teasing her best friend, a shy girl from Korea, for wearing the wrong shoes long after she'd learned to play football because it was either that or get left out. This gap in Mike's knowledge was filled in the hard way when she tackled him, hard. Not once, but three times - and she was on the same team!_

 _Afterwards, Raina insisted on giving Mike a lift to his billet when she learned he lived two floors above her – a hair-raising ride on the back of her dad's old Harley Davidson shovelhead until they got pulled over and ticketed for running a stop sign by a corporal in Mike's shop (who smirked the entire time). Embarrassed, Mike decided to limp home on foot as in: "Potato-potato-potato? HELL NO!" Unfazed, she'd laughed at him while calling him a big yellow chicken._

 _So he'd climbed back on the bike, and the evening had ended in a big, unexpected but gratifying make-out session during a surprise visit to where the helicopters lived._

 _Anyway, the unanticipated locker room envy the next day after practicing for an upcoming boxing tournament felt good: Schmidt, Michael J., the big quiet guy who'd always stood in the background efficiently doing his job somehow landed the barracuda - without even trying._

 _Or had it been the other way around?_

 _This was because, as Mike quickly learned, with Raina there was no in-between. With her, you either fished or dove over the side and swam for your life in the opposite direction in a blind panic._

 _Mike was a good swimmer - one of the best in fact at the age of 27._

 _However, this time he chose to stay and fish, which meant less than a month after she'd insisted on teaching him how to ride and then get his license, Mike, painfully careful with money, found himself buying the used Honda Goldwing he'd found advertised in the latest edition of the Miramar News. That was when she mentioned over the evening's UFO the Monday before they spent the weekend riding up the Coastal Highway to Big Sur, that she was going to be visiting her oldest brother, who'd betrayed family tradition by joining the fucking ARMY, (but he'd been forgiven, somewhat) and was now stationed with his wife and new baby in Wildfleken. ("You know, "Wild Chicken"?)_

 _If Mike felt like, you know, joining her in seeing the new baby before he went on embassy duty in the Middle East in two weeks… the Autobahn was a great ride. He'd like it! They would only be there for a week or less, so everything was legal… Her big brother was tall, he might be willing to lend Schmidt his bike while she rode her sister in law's… Anyway, with a last name like Schmidt and his big ol' square German head, (which she thought extremely good looking) he'd fit right in - so why the hell not?_

 _Wading ever deeper into the cloudy gray area of inter-service fraternization that made his inner cop uncomfortable even as Subec Bay and several other port of call fleshpots lost a regular customer, Mike said to himself, "Why the hell not?"_

 _So a week after Raina shipped out for Germany, the guy who was so cautious that he'd gotten a vasectomy as soon as he was nineteen and could find a doctor willing to do it on someone that young, found himself on a German bus to Wildfleken after a long, miserable Space A flight._

 _Only, the driver was sloshed… he should have listened to his inner cop, and refused to get on… reported the guy… and it had ended in a squeal of tires and the crash of breaking glass – people had been seriously injured when he could have done something about it… it was over._

 _Just like that._

Ashamed at getting kicked out of yet another home, Mike disappeared into the woodwork after his medical discharge without a word or forwarding address, leaving Raina to wonder what happened to him even as she agonized over what she'd done wrong.


	13. Human Remains

Raina dropped Buffy off at the _Doublemeat Palace_ on the way to her motel room on the other side of the Interstate with the admonition, "You're too young and too intelligent to piss your life away in fast food. Go the recruitment office when you get off work today and see what they can do for you. I know the recruiter, he's cool, he'll take care of you - just give him my card." Buffy had given her a blank, puzzled look while accepting Raina's business card as she turned to close the door of Raina's little red Miata.

Raina answered Buffy's expression with an exasperated one of her own – so many low-income girls fell down the rabbit hole, so much potential wasted, winding up knocked up in trailer parks or HUD housing, drugs, prostitution, abusive boyfriends, fast food, obesity, addiction, shitty jobs, adding, "If it's your little sister you're worried about, Boot's not that long, and neither is most MOS training – give temporary custody to someone you can trust and get her declared a dependent as soon as you can. Once you're active duty you won't have to worry about housing and medical for her, all right? Will you promise me you'll at least look into it?"

Buffy had shrugged, "Okay." while slamming the passenger side door. Shaking her head, Raina watched her walk into the back of the fast food roach motel, knowing that was the LAST thing most girls in Buffy's position would do so that in a few years she'd either be dead or dealing with three kids by three different fathers with a fourth one on the way.

The back door of the _Doublemeat Palace_ closed. Preparing to pull out into traffic, Raina hastily stepped on the brakes when she noticed something glittering on the passenger side seat.

The kid had obviously dropped something. Intending to return whatever it was even if it was a cheap charm bracelet, Raina pulled around into the front parking lot, killed the engine, and without really looking, picked up whatever it was Buffy'd left behind, only to feel the familiar weight of a pair of dog tags complete with black silencers in her right hand.

Curious, Raina held them up.

Ok, maybe she'd a boyfriend or a relative in the Service – sometimes duplicates would be made and given to a loved one. If so, she'd want them back. Raina absently wrapped the beaded chain around her fingers, reading out loud, "Schmidt, Michael J."

The tags flipped over with a clink, and the hair rose on the back of Raina's neck: hanging off of the shorter chain of the second dog tag was dime-sized plastic medallion exactly like the one she'd given him as a gag good luck charm after he'd asked her about the St. Christopher's medal she always wore one evening while eating dinner at a picnic bench overlooking Pfeiffer Beach on Big Sur during their two-day Coastal Highway road trip.

"It's a Catholic thing, you wouldn't understand." she'd teased while passing the salt, "Anyway, BOTH grandmothers would kill me if I took it off – it's protection for travelers and children. I guess they think I need all the help I can get!"

"Oh." he'd said, "Guess as sort of a Baptist, I don't qualify, then." Laughing, she'd handed him the prize from the box of Cracker Jack she was eating for desert: a tiny medallion with a little blue Pegasus complete with a rainbow mane and tail stamped on it that he'd very carefully put on his smallest dog tag chain – she'd no idea he'd left it on there…

That is, if these were really his.

Raina looked again, murmuring to herself, "Common enough name, and charms are a dime a dozen." Anyway, there were Schmidts everywhere, especially in the Midwest. But, this was California…

Expecting "Army", she let her eyes follow the letters stamped in the metal. "USMC".

Hmmmm…

Again, common enough. Raina opened the glove compartment and pulled out a worn manila folder full of documents she wasn't supposed to have and compared the Military ID she'd found eight years ago under a moldy plate of canned spaghetti in a rundown apartment to the tags Buffy'd left on Raina's passenger seat.

The MOS, the blood type, the birthday, the religion - matched.

Raina's eyes fell onto the SSN. The first three digits, and then the following two - matched.

As did the final four.

Eyes shut, Raina let the tags dangle from her fingers, customers for _Doublemeat Palace_ walking past her car unheeded.

Finally, after years of nothing, a clue.

But how the hell had some little girl in the sticks get hold of the dog tags of a man who'd fallen off of the face of the Earth after his discharge eight years ago? Was Buffy, what was it, Summers? Mike's kid? If so, had there been a divorce so the names didn't match?

No, the numbers were wrong: once the two of them had got over Buffy landing on her from falling off a nearby piece of playground equipment (or so she said), she'd looked about twenty, twenty-one to Raina. She was blonde, with gray to hazel-eyes and so tiny that Raina initially took her for fifteen. Still, families varied; maybe she took after her mother?

But no, one night while fishing off of an abandoned jetty sticking out into the Pacific, Mike quietly told her that if she ever wanted to make a go of it with him, kids were out.

When pressed further, he reluctantly admitted that he'd had a vasectomy at the age of 19 right out of Parris Island because he'd had it so rough as a kid that he was damned he'd risk repeating the experience for someone else.

That was when the whole mess came out: that his mother had dumped him as a baby on his grandparents, that there wasn't even the name of a father on his birth certificate for Christ's sake, and that she'd later been found dead of a heroin overdose after she'd been dumped naked in a vacant lot in East St. Louis for everybody to gawk at when he was ten. By twelve he'd been passed from household to household before being put up for adoption by his own blood relatives who didn't have the time or the money for an extra mouth. Of how he'd kicked around until he was old enough to be on his own, before adding angrily that no kid of his should have to go through that if he'd any say.

Raina shuffled through the folder, pulling out a picture taken of the two of them on the road trip that she'd found among Mike's things, and set it aside, face down.

Disturbed by Mike's silence after his medical discharge, and after a friend mentioned seeing him working the front door of a club in L.A, she'd found the number and called. Mike's boss told her that the lousy son of a bitch had taken a week off three weeks before and not bothered to come back.

Troubled, she located the remains of his Goldwing in an LAPD impound yard – it had been found stripped and abandoned in East L.A. Now genuinely alarmed because Mike had been very proud of the bike and had taken meticulous care of it, she filed a missing person's report after locating his bass guitar along with the little Peavey amp she'd given him for Christmas in a pawn shop. It had been brought in by the people living at the address that the club owner had reluctantly given her, telling her at the same time to let Mike know that he'd been fired the next time she saw him.

Figuring she might find a clue among them, Raina swiped the pawn ticket taped to the fridge and Mike's personal papers right in front of the potheads still living in the filthy studio apartment. She'd found the documents mingled into the overall jumble of filthy dishes, dirty clothes, and overflowing ash trays that covered every flat surface, hastily shoving them into his looted duffel bag, along with a back brace, a filthy jumble of uniforms missing all their insignia and medals, and two disturbingly empty OxyContin prescription bottles that should have been mostly full – something Mike's former roommates grinned at when she'd asked – they had NO IDEA where the missing pills had got off to.

Ah! There they were, medical records! Raina scanned them hastily. Mike hadn't lied about the vasectomy: he'd been voluntarily sterilized in 1986.

Curious and a little appalled, she'd asked a nurse friend after Mike's confession if that sort of thing could be reversed? Yes, she was told, but not always successfully, so the attending physician would have doubtlessly advised Mike to put something away just in case before surgery. However, there were no indications in the papers she'd taken and kept with her for nearly a decade that he'd done so. Still, going by Buffy's age, he would have fathered her when he was…barely fifteen? Sixteen? Seventeen?

Had this happened, the mother, undoubtedly little older than he at the time, might have put the baby up for adoption? But if Mike had, and considering how he'd felt about his own childhood as an unwanted stray, wouldn't he have tried to keep in touch with his child, or at least _told_ Raina?

Anyway, Buffy didn't LOOK the slightest bit like him – she was built like a hummingbird compared to the tall muscular man with squarely handsome features looking back at her from his old Military I.D. – and that NOSE? Nothing like Mike's! A step-daughter, perhaps?

And if Buffy wasn't any of these things, how the hell had she gotten hold of the tags and the good luck charm?

"Damn! Damn! Damn!" Raina leaned back in the seat of her Miata, pounding on the steering wheel in frustration. She wasn't looking for a reconciliation- especially if he'd built a new life for himself. Even if he hadn't, it'd been nearly eight years; yes, she'd looked for him when her career allowed her to, but doubtlessly they were different people by now. She didn't want to cause trouble, just to set her mind at ease, to appease her guilt while making sure he was all right and not living rough under a bridge somewhere if not actually dead.

Raina brought herself under control. She had two more days before she had to report for duty and it was worth a try. She slipped Mike's dog tags over her neck, Pegasus charm and all so that it rested beside hers and got out of the car with the folder in one hand, slammed the door behind it and started determinedly walking across the hot parking lot towards the front door of Sunnydale's one and only Doublemeat Palace.


	14. A Life in Six Pictures

"I know these pictures are nearly eight years old, but have you seen this man? If you have, can you tell me where he is and how I can contact him?" Without actually looking at them, Raina slid two documents towards Buffy across the bilious yellow table at the back of the Doublemeat Palace dining area.

Without putting down her Doublemeat Palace "Big Ol' Belly Burner", Buffy studied them while sucking down a Diet Coke. The woman she'd landed on who'd also given her a ride to work had been hanging around the dining room nursing the same cup of coffee ALL morning. At least Ms. Dashinsky wasn't a Social Worker out to bug her about Dawn. She wasn't doing anything illegal, she wasn't bothering the customers, but the way the tall, athletic woman with dark hair lightly touched with gray watched her made Buffy uncomfortable, but not uncomfortable enough to complain to the shift supervisor.

Until Buffy sat down for an early lunch before the noon rush.

Boom! There Ms. Dashinsky was, pushing photos at Buffy when all she wanted to do was eat her indigestion on a bun and soggy fries in peace while wondering what she should do about Spike, if what happened last night hadn't been a nightmare. He seemed happy, a little TOO happy there, and he was definitely out from underfoot. But… there _were_ nasty things going "bump" in there that might be a part of whatever it was that was mobilizing around the Hellmouth. Damn, Dawnie had a major math test and the washing machine was making that weird grinding noise again, and the real-estate taxes were due - adulting sucked!

Irritated, Buffy looked down at what the woman sitting quietly across from her wanted her to look at, some missing guy, thinking, "Well, gee-whizz, lady, welcome to the Hellmouth! People disappear around here 24-7. What do I look like, the Bureau of Missing Persons?" and nearly choked mid-slurp. She put down the burger, and after wiping her hands on one of the cheap thin paper napkins the Palace supplied it's customers with, picked up the ID with her fingernails.

It was "Mike", the guy, the bear, the _whatever_ he/it was from last night in the weird-o crazy mazy place. Only he wasn't all woozy wobbly looking.

Oh my God, and he was hot (for an old guy) even in the sort of photo that makes everybody look like a bored serial killer. Keeping her cool, Buffy put the ID down and did the math on her fingers under the table. Going by his birthday in the mid-1960s, he was almost GILES OLD, maybe even BALD by now – Ew! Ew! Ew! EW!

Distracting herself from this disturbing line of thought, Buffy glanced from the ID to the snapshot of Mike and a much younger Raina Dashinsky in leathers leaning against two parked motorcycles, arms over each other's shoulders, leaning into each other, the Pacific in the background sometime around sunset. They looked really happy. "I thought you were some sort of cop. Is he your husband?"

"No, just someone I knew a long time ago that I... I lost track of." Was that a slight catch in Ms. Dashinky's voice? "Now, look at these. They might jar your memory." She pushed another small stack of photos across the table at Buffy.

It was Mike, who looked to be about nineteen in a stiff, formal looking uniform with a flag in the background. Reminded of Riley Finn, who was Army, no, _Initiative_ , Buffy frowned while setting the picture aside. Based on looks and size, Mike would have been perfect for the Initiative, and the Initiative, like Riley Finn, had been a big mistake.

Yeah, Buffy knew where Mike was all right. Only if she told Ms. Dashinsky what went down last night for real, she'd doubtlessly call the guys with white coats to come throw a net over her.

Buffy had NO intention of going through THAT again.

Another snapshot: Mike, slightly older, sitting in shadowy profile on a bed in what looked like a dorm wearing a worn out plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up over an equally worn looking Guns 'N Roses concert t-shirt playing a bass guitar, a look of quiet concentration on his face, the light from a half-curtained window behind him turning his hair to burnished gold against the darkness.

Mike washing a motorcycle shirtless, soaked and barefoot in a pair of worn-out jeans.

Mike and Ms. Dashinsky goofing around in front of a helicopter: her in a flight suit, him in camo, a baton on his belt, his arm around her waist as she bent forward laughing.

And the last one, Mike asleep wearing the same worn out plaid shirt and concert t-shirt, one arm draped over his forehead, utterly relaxed somewhere on a blanket on the grass – he probably never realized that his picture was being taken.

Buffy's eyes lingered on this one the longest while taking another long slurp of Diet Coke. Finally she said, "Nope. I never saw this guy in my life."

For a second Ms. Dashinsky looked as if she wanted to reach across the table and slap Buffy. Instead, she busied her hands with brisk little motions as they gathered up the photographs and ID and after aligning their edges with a smart rap on the table and slipped them into the folder, jaw set before reaching into her purse, and pulled something out. After looking at whatever it was, she tossed it onto the table between them with a jingling clatter, "Then why did you leave his dog tags on the front seat of my car when you got out earlier today?"

Casualy Buffy rose, saying, "I found them in the street yesterday while walking home from work. Thought I might turn them in to the police when I had the time." Buffy met Raina's eyes, adding levelly, "Keep 'em if you like. Now if you'll excuse me, _some_ of us have to _work_ for a _living_." before turning her back and marching through the swinging double doors to the Doublemeat Palace's kitchen, sucking hard on the straw of her now empty Diet Coke.


	15. Mask

_Raina warily picked her way through the filthy little apartment, dead roaches of both kinds peppered the vile smelling carpet and empty pizza boxes underfoot. The guy that had opened the door when she'd knocked, not knowing what awaited her on the other side, had been more than half fried. Something resisted under the sole of her cross trainer before giving way with a sudden crunch._

 _She stooped, realizing that she'd accidentally stepped on one of Mike's compilation tapes – his handwriting plainly on the little paper label. There were others, now that she was paying attention, loosed from the cassette box he kept them in, the recording tape pulled out in brown snarls like so many spider webs: favorite bands, individual songs he'd liked, things he'd recorded off of the radio, nothing outstanding but they'd been his and he'd prized them as well as a flat case the size of a deck of playing cards – a medal box, empty. She found two more, also empty, kicked under the ragged papa san couch as Mike's presumed roomates, squatters more like, didn't even bother to ask her name as she sifted through the mess._

 _She found his empty duffle bag under a chair that oozed stuffing and God knows what else as the "doorman" and another stoner went back to guffawing and toking over a brand new Nintendo game system playing "Kirby's Adventure" or some other waste of life on the disgusting futon. Furious, she shook out the Dorito crumbs and stale Cheese Doodles and started scooping Mike's uniform and his civvies, including a shirt she'd given him as a birthday gift which now had a muddy footprint that was too small to be his in the middle of the back, and his one pair of civilian shoes, into it. His boom box, boxing gloves, and cherished concert t-shirts were gone –she'd looked everywhere, including the reeking bathroom even as she found pictures of the two of them all over the floor covered with footprints and worse._

 _After that, she'd found the OxyContin bottles - which caused the first confrontation._

 _The second came when she found a pawn ticket for Mike's bass and amp stuck to the filthy avocado green refrigerator. She hadn't known that Mike could play until he'd noticed her guitar in her open closet one afternoon when he'd dropped by her room after work. Without telling her what he was up to, he'd gone two floors up to his own billet and returned with a bass guitar and amp. The two of them played along to the radio together with the sound turned down until sunrise the next day. It was a beat-up pawnshop find but even then she could tell that he took excellent care of it and the battered little amp that came with it._

 _When she realized that Mike's name wasn't on the ticket, she'd confronted the two gamers for a second time, only to get glassy-eyed giggles and: "Chill, babe, chill! Big dude ain't been here in WEEKS and we NEEDED weed!" as the one with the bad acne and the half-ass dreadlocks attempted to grope her. She'd broken his jaw, sending him squealing to the floor before storming out with the duffle bag and what she could rescue of Mike's papers. Only this time as she hurried angrily down the stairs to the parking lot, there was a man who looked like Mike leaning against the hood of her car, his back to her._

 _Raina dropped what she'd rescued, running down the stairs two at a time as he straightened, face still averted, wearing the blue and white striped chambray shirt that she'd given him. Not because she was criticizing his taste in civvies, but because she'd liked how handsome he'd looked in it when he came out of the Officer's Club Men's Room that night when she'd stood him a beer for his birthday after work… Raina reached the bottom step, bursting through the vandalized door with it's cracked window out onto the hot sidewalk. He stood, and walked away, absently flipping the baton in his right hand like some beat cop in an old black and white movie._

 _"Mike!" she yelled, running towards him, wanting to touch him if he'd let her, "I'm so glad to see you!"_

 _Instead, he began to walk away, baton a black dance, the sun glinting off of the back of his head, "Wait, please!" Mike paused at the busy intersection, baton stilled, and looked over his shoulder at her._

 _He was wearing a cheap looking Halloween mask of a pink and white cartoon bear, but she would have known the eyes that stared blankly through her anywhere. "Mike, wait!" she yelled again. The masked man then walked into traffic against the blinking red light before she could reach him, dark blood suddenly spilling out of the mouth of the mask and down the front of his shirt. "Mike, I'm sorry!"_

In an anonymous motel room on the edge of the Interstate highway that broke Sunnydale in half, Raina Dashinsky sat up gasping, tears running down her face, a dull pain in her left arm and side.

She fumbled beside her in the dark for the remote and turned off the television and the rented VCR, which was blaring a one of the of _American Spooks_ video tapes from the set she'd bought after the first time she'd seen what she thought was Mike as one of the ghosts. With her other hand she slipped a pill into her mouth followed by a long, slow drink of water.

Waiting for the painkiller to kick in, she glanced at the bedside alarm clock: 11:30.

It'd been a long time since she'd had that nightmare.


	16. A Path in the Maze

_Circus Baby quickly tired of her new dancing bear._

 _Oh, it danced all right._

 _When it felt like it._

 _When it wanted to._

 _Which wasn't often._

 _Though they had killed him, he turned the other toys against her._

 _This would not do._

 _Circus Baby complained._

 _She complained to Charlie._

 _Charlie never let Circus Baby down._

 _Charlie gave her the collars._

 _Charlie gave her the boxes._

 _Telling her, "When your toys are recharging, put these on them. It will be fun."_

 _And ohhhhhh, yes, it was fun._

 _So very, very fun._

 _Everyone did as Circus Baby said, even the dancing bear._

 _Whom she made dance the hardest._

 _Until he stole the box._

 _And using her dreams, built a place she couldn't get in._

 _Even as he got out._

 _But there were other paths he'd created in Circus Baby's maze._

 _Long before the man with white hair returned the box._

 _Bored, Circus Baby chose one at random, looking for fun._

 _She found it._

Raina dozed off, the pill numbing down the pain in her side, spilling over from where her left breast had been, as doubtlessly it had for her mother, fragments of dreams, or were they memories? flickering hysterically across the backs of her eyelids in the flat hard hum of the silence of her room…

 _"… going through her things while packing up what little she owned before deploying to the Gulf for carrier duty, she found Mike's Pearl Jam cassette album, "Ten", that he might want back… he'd loved the song "Black"… having not seen him since Germany, she'd gone to the cop shop to drop it off only to see him through the glass window to an office sorting papers, some sort of light duty while waiting for the axe to fall… he moved carefully, slowly, like an old man… she'd knocked on the glass, holding the cassette up, waving it… blankly he'd looked up, hands mechanically sorting and stapling, and right through her… feeling like she couldn't breathe, Raina left the cassette on the sill and sat in her car somewhere off base behind a convenience store and tried to cry, tried to breathe, the stereo system blasting away, trying to breathe, trying to breathe…_

…she sat up with a whooping gasp, the pressure on her chest suddenly gone, the motel room dimly illuminated by the security lights outside the curtain on the front window. Sweating, she fell back onto the rumpled bedding, waiting for her heart to slow down.

Eventually Raina glanced at the bedside alarm clock, 12:00.

Midnight.

She got up, got dressed, and locked the door behind her, to drive around aimlessly wherever she happened to be as she'd done since her own discharge three years before when the cancer could no longer be ignored.


	17. And what about Spike?

As for Spike, well, what's one dark underground place over another if lately you can't tell the difference between that and your own feet?

Only problem was, the place was totally empty of rats, but a lad can't have everything, can he?

And anyway, the First left him alone here.


	18. Ghost in the Machine

Raina drove through the empty streets of Sunnydale, mind still echoing with the nightmare memory of someone that she had loved very much turning his back on her – even if she didn't blame him.

 _She'd put Mike's things in storage when she'd had no choice – she was slated for carrier duty and couldn't take his stuff with her._

Raina randomly turned down a street, passing what looked like a new high school, headlights tracking across the steel and concrete façade.

 _His uniforms, his clothing, had been dry cleaned and laundered at a one hour place in L.A. that was discreet. The stench of pot and worse was the last thing she wanted to deal with, and she didn't want Mike's reputation ruined._

 _While waiting, she'd stopped off at some random fitness center and taken a full shower, discarding her shoes and clothes and wearing the PT stuff from the bag she kept in the back seat home for that very same reason. The stench of urine, dirty dishes, cigarettes and worse had clung to her even with the windows rolled down – she'd picked up her discarded clothes in the locker room to throw them away and suddenly found herself violently horking in the nearest trash can, her body trying to cleanse itself of the grief and the filth she'd just wallowed in._

 _She had driven back to Miramar, eyes straying unbidden towards every homeless man she saw on the side of the road, hoping but relieved that she didn't see Mike among them._

 _The day before Raina officially shipped out, she filed a missing person's report, but the LAPD flat told her not to get her hopes up. Knowing how much Mike enjoyed reading want ads and police reports - the odder, the better, (He'd even a couple of the weirdest ones laminated- which he kept in his wallet for a laugh.) Raina bought a month's worth of personal ads in every L.A. paper she could find, asking Mike to contact her: she had his stuff, no strings attached. She only wanted to know that he was all right._

 _She never got a response._

Driving in ever widening circles through suburbia, Raina found herself heading back towards that little park she'd found during the previous morning's run.

Well, why the hell NOT take a run at this hour? There was a well-lit track that had no hiding places beside it. She'd just been passed by the same cop twice – it should be safe enough.

Anyway she'd not encountered the over-dressed blonde who'd shown up out of nowhere at her open car window last night at a stop sign – yeesh, what a weirdo! She'd looked over and there Goldilocks was, leaning against the half-open driver's side window, nostrils flaring like an animal's, whining, "Ewwwwww, gross, cancer!" and then she was gone before Raina could mace her!

Because of this bizarre encounter, Raina kept her windows rolled up and the doors locked the second she got back into her car at the motel. The next time it might be some cranked up knucklehead. Raina felt confident that she could defend herself, but she wasn't stupid...

Still…

A woman alone, even if she was…

Aw, fuck it! She'd wear the big canister of mace she kept under the driver's seat.

Raina removed a CD from the player in her car and slipped it into the CD Walk-Man she wore clipped to her belt when she ran, the mace joining it, killed the engine, and got out, prepared to run.

 _She returned from the Gulf, and looked some more._

 _No luck._

 _And life went on._

 _Until one failed marriage, a bad miscarriage, and a mastectomy that didn't work as promised later, she found herself going to a storage unit she'd paid for without visiting for nearly a decade, unlocking it, exhuming near-forgotten memories after seeing someone she'd once loved more than she thought she ever could anyone starring on a cheesy reality show that tracked down urban ghost myths while recovering from her second round of chemo._

 _She'd come to this little desert town within easy driving distance of L.A. after signing the paperwork turning down further chemo because one of the episodes had shown someone who looked an awful lot like Mike in a dilapidated frat house that had once been an orphanage rounding up a child ghost – an obvious hoax because such shit was fodder for the stupid, to question the neighbors after unsuccessfully trying to get the production staff of "American Spooks" to talk to her._

While sorting through the carefully bagged and hung uniforms and other human remains, Raina found a compilation tape that she'd missed when she'd packed his things away eight years before. No longer having anything to play it on, she'd paid to have it transferred to a CD but until now hadn't the guts to actually play it.

As she stepped onto the track, Raina put on the headphones. With the ache in her side a distant shadow, she started a slow, easy jog around the little track, listening to static-dusted memories recorded off a radio, where in between the lines of Extreme's _Pornografitti_ album's "Hole Hearted" a bassline that had never been engineered into the original thumped and smoldered and the lead singer Gary Cherone sang a two-man duet that had never been contracted by the original producer, "…and this hole in my heart can't be filled by the things I do…"


	19. Funhouse Mirror

That night Buffy found herself patrolling in the general direction of the little park on the edge of Sunnydale, the full moon high overhead.

She was NOT looking for Spike.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to go that way.

It had been a long day with some real pain in the butt customers even if you didn't count that Raina person, and she was in no mood to fool around with anything demony that she encountered, so that two minor vampire stakings later at the back of Sunnydale's main municipal cemetery, she decided that the cheap soda machine (at 50 cents a Diet Coke) a few blocks down, was worth a bit of a walk.

She definitely was NOT looking for Spike.

Loopy or not, he was out of her life, and that was that.

Anyway, how could she be so sure what happened last night in Bizarro Nightmare World with that bear-man-whatever, his rude talking dog, and his big ol' easy chair wasn't just a nightmare brought on by too much French fry grease mixed with having to live three lives at once? As to her knees being all skinned up this morning, she was covered with all sorts of scrapes and bruises – it was part of the calling.

As for Spike? Spike and his smelly self was undoubtedly in his smelly lair in the smelly basement of the the new not so smelly High School (Give it time, though, as in, TEENAGE _BOYS_ with HORMONES and TUNA SURPRISE every Friday in the SCHOOL CAFETERIA, and CHEMISTRY CLASS MISHAPS – the brand new Sunnydale High School wouldn't be so fresh after a month of that!)

Nope. Not looking for Spike. Just staked another vampire, big fat hairy deal – she'd been so out of the mood for the hunt that she'd not even bothered to dance with this one, just walked up to him and said, "Are you new here?" and before he could reply, staked him without even bothering to break stride.

Soooooooo, she was now in the little playground.

Sooooooooo what? It's on the way to a cheap Diet Coke, as in: a public place, even if it's past midnight and the only thing that might be playing on the swings at such a ridiculous hour might happen to be something icky, like, I dunno, Spike? And his odor.

Buffy sauntered past the starkly lit swingsets and then the little play fort.

Nothin' to see here folks, move along, just somebody didn't pick up their toys is all.

The Slayer bent and picked up a little stuffed bear, a bleached out pink and white one, sort of grubby, as in "well loved", with big blue googly cartoon eyes that some child must have left behind.

She wrinkled her nose, it smelled nasty. Like a mouse had crawled inside and died, and the stitches connecting the head to the body had started popping loose so that the stuffing oozed out and it's moronically ginning head lolled.

Ewww.

Grimacing, Buffy put it on one of the swings, which suddenly started moving back and forth on it's own. She stepped back and the swing abruptly stopped. Her heel came down on something rounded, causing her to stumble and land on her butt.

"Owwww, who left a baseball bat laying around? Darned kids don't pick up after themselves!" Self-propelled swing forgotten, she fumbled around in the woodchips covering the ground, fingers connecting with something that wasn't exactly a baseball bat.

Buffy held it up in the light as she stood, dusting off her backside with her free hand. No, it wasn't a baseball bat – more like a cop's baton. It even had the little handle thingy sticking out of one side only it ended with what looked like a brass bear's head instead of the usual knobby thingy... what the?

Buffy frowned- it definitely wasn't issue, like the one Riley used with brutal efficiency on more than one demon when they were dating. (No, they'd never really dated. It had been more like nonstop schtupping in between killing things.) Aside from it being longer than she remembered Riley's being, there was weird scarring up and down the black polycarbonate shaft – like somebody had bitten it repeatedly – that, and somebody had scratched their initials into it: MJS.

Michael… J…. Schmidt…?

Great. Between that Raina woman bothering her with all those pictures and that set of dog tags… it hadn't been a… The swing moved again, bumping Buffy on the behind. She spun, eyes scanning the dark outer edges of the playground where the lights failed to reach, "Hello?" Unconsciously flipping the baton into a more comfortable grip, Buffy's free hand moved back toward the stake she'd slid earlier into the waistband of her warm-up pants.

There was the sound of a whipcrack and the wind spiraled around her as the merry-go-round she'd passed earlier began to spin lazily.

"You broke Mike. Fix him!" a child's voice demanded all around her.

Buffy dropped into a fighting crouch, a second, closer-sounding whipcrack echoing through the empty playground, as the voice repeated petulantly, "FIX HIM!"

She spun, baton raised, the stake falling out of the back of her waistband, putting the little play fort at her back at the sound of a third whipcrack that sounded practically on top of her, suddenly heavy feet plowing through the shredded bark loosely covering the ground, unseen reflection writhing behind her in the fun-house style mirror mounted on the side of the little play fort.

Unheeded, the silvery plastic rippled like water - dozens of small quicksilver hands shot out, catching at Buffy's clothing, her hair, her face, yanking her into the mirror, which shattered into spinning droplets like beads of mercury as still clutching the scarred baton, she tumbled over and over through the silvery void behind the mirror, abruptly finding herself standing upright on the dust covered floor of an endless ashen plain, the scarred baton landing beside her with an echoing slow-motion clatter.

"You broke Mike. Fix him!" a little girl's voice demanded, cutting through the insistent piping chorus gathered invisibly around Buffy, tugging at her hands, her hair, and her clothing.

Dust settling sluggishly around her as if underwater, the Slayer looked up in the dim light as she tried to pull herself free from the invisible little hands. A Siamese cat and a fluffy little white dog sat before her, eyes intent in sapphire and amber before they spun as one, bounding away from her in the huge, sound muffling grey-lit space as myriad small human footprints flickered in and out of sight around her in the dust, while countless unseen small hands urged Buffy after the two animals.

"I must have hit my head on a swing when I tripped, or maybe it's just a dream after all," Buffy added, "Wonder if this place is one of Gile's books?"

Pausing to pick up the baton, Buffy allowed herself to be herded along the trail left behind by the two bounding animals, who soon came into view, sitting like statues before suddenly springing to their feet, sometimes running away in to the distance, to appear behind her, herding her forward in a sea of little footprints, grey infinity around, above, and behind her for what felt like forever.

 _Breathing hard and headphones around her neck, Raina leaned forward, hands on her knees – the cancer had certainly cut into her stamina even at this easy pace._

 _There was a sound, like somebody popping a belt or snapping a towel. She looked up._

 _There, in the little playground area on the other side of the track was that girl again. She was in a crouch, moving backwards._

 _Raina straightened, squinting. Seems she wasn't the only woman stupid enough to be out this late at night by herself._

 _A second noise, closer, louder, almost like small arms fire._

 _Checking the canister of mace as she started a light jog in the direction of the playground, Raina prepared herself for a confrontation – if the kid was being attacked, rude as she was, she still didn't deserve to go at it alone – and it wasn't like Raina had anything better to do._

 _There were voices. Children's?_

 _A third sharp report. Panting, Raina sped up just in time to see Buffy sink backwards into the play mirror._

 _"What the…?" Raina stopped abruptly, mouth open. She shut it with a snap. Obviously the painkillers and the lingering aftereffects of chemo in her system were having big fun tonight._

 _Still, she stepped forward, steps muffled by the wood chips underfoot, and poked at the distorting mirror with the end of the mace canister._

 _Which sank into the surface, which rippled like water in a puddle._

 _Raina pushed harder, and the canister sank further in, a spreading coolness going up her arm where the tips of her fingers made contact with the silvery stuff, which now rippled and flowed in front of her._

 _"Soooooo…" Raina cocked her head, considering this marvel, "So where did she go?" She took a quick look at the back of what should have been a solid surface – bright red plastic, a bit scarred. She knocked on it with her free hand – solid._

 _Hmmmmmmm… her arm slipped painlessly in up to the elbow. She stepped back, considering the impossibility which rippled and danced before her._

 _Meds acting frisky or not, and already facing one gateway to the unknown at any time, Raina Dashinksy said, "What the hell!" and stepped through._


	20. Whirlwind

Buffy stumbled to an exhausted halt, the Siamese cat and the fluffy little white dog once more parked like statues in front of her just out of reach after what seemed like an eternity of being tugged and yanked at by an invisible kindergarten while traversing the featureless plain

That wasn't the weird part, though.

The weird part was, now that she'd had a chance to catch her breath, was that both animal's ears were pierced.

Multiple times.

"What kind of sick creep would do that to a helpless little creature?" Buffy thought as she sat down on the slow motion dust which lazily puffed up between her fingers, watching the small footsteps, some shod, most bare, flicker in the ashy surface that spread out around her for seemingly miles to a horizon that didn't exist. Occasionally an unseen little hand would tug at her clothing, or stroke her hair. She'd quickly learned not to take this seriously, even if the hands touching her were, _ugh_ , sticky. Buffy leaned back, legs sprawled out in front of her, arms supporting her, the baton across her knees.

Once again, that unnerving twin stare in sapphire and amber. Crossing her legs yoga-style, Buffy leaned forward, reaching out tentatively while saying, "Uh, nice doggie?" What was it, some sort of Spitz? Grammy Summers's had a dog like that when Buffy was little – only it had been lively and ran around in circles the second Buffy took the red ball it liked to chase out into the back yard – it did NOT stare at you like a disgruntled plushie. "Here pooch!" She made kissing noises.

"Dammit, I'm a FOX!" the fluffy white creature snarled, snapping unnaturally large-looking teeth at Buffy's extended hand.

Buffy quickly pulled her hand back, mentally counting her fingers. Was the thing some sort of demon?

"City girl! City girl!" The Siamese cat yawned, exposing a mouthful of teeth or was it the entire inventory of the knife shop at the Mall the thing was hiding in its mouth? "Told'ja so, Magpie. This one's stupid – no wonder she broke Mike!"

"You can talk?"

"God!" the Siamese cat rolled it, no, _her_ , eyes, "What did I just say, "oink"? Puhleeeeeeeze!" She abruptly turned her back on Buffy, plopped down on her fuzzy butt and began cleaning herself, one stick-like back leg at full extension over her head, grumbling, "We don't have time for this crap – not with HER sneakin' 'round tryin' to get into our one good day and ruin it!"

That was when Buffy realized that the two animals really WERE plushies.

Sort of?

"Sooooooo," Buffy ventured, rising slightly so that she was now leaning forward on her knees, baton gripped in her right hand, the invisible hands still brushing against her, "What exactly IS this place?" Her voice Dopplered slightly in her ears.

"Duh!" the Siamese cat paused mid lick, Buffy could now see seams along it's sleek body and that it was wearing a sparkly blue collar with a bell around its neck. "Magpie, you do the explainin' this time. I have my tail still to do. It needs all my concentration or it'll come out all frizzy!"

The white fox Rolled it's amber eyes and sighed impatiently, "What- _everrrrr!_ When you came in here the other night all "whoop-di-do" and "aren't I cute?" you met the _bear_."

"Bear?" Buffy scooched around so that she could more clearly see the fox, which also had seams peeking out at her from beneath it's long, luxurious pink and white fur and red bow tie collar, "What bear?" she paused as a realization hit her, "Ohhhhhhhh, _THAT_ bear."

"Yeah, "that bear", as in "THE BIG GUY"– only now he's sulking or whatEVERrrrrr because you just HAAAAAAAD to aaaaaasssssssk!" The plush fox began to scratch behind one ear, eyes rolling derisively.

"Ask what?"

"What you _asked, right "Blondie Bar"?"_ the Siamese cat interrupted impatiently. Buffy stared at her as she resumed her careful tail maintenance. Suddenly, the little footprints surrounding the Slayer abruptly faced the horizon behind her.

Oblivious, Buffy snapped impatiently, "What are you?" in an attempt to get these, these two THINGS to give her a clue as to their true nature so she could eliminate them and get out of this boring nightmare as quickly as possible.

"Eggs Ackley!" The Siamese cat smirked as the footprints rapidly scattered, adding casually over one fawn-colored shoulder while briefly stretching herself like a croquet hoop before sauntering after the fleeing footprints, "By the way, Blondie? You might want to pay closer attention to what's going on back of you. After all, you're the one who broke him!"

"Broke. Broke? What the hell are you talking about?" Buffy asked frowning, only to yelp as something thundered towards her from behind like a runaway freight train, forcing her to hit the dirt and bury her face in her arms or be blinded as it pelted her with stinging grit. "Fix? How— oh my God– what the hell is this?" Buffy screamed at the universe over the whistling roar, scrabbling at the ground as the lightning shot vortex sucked her and the now dropped baton backwards. Despite nearly a decade of Vampire slaying and miscellaneous demon disposal, this was the first time Buffy'd ever found herself in the position of being attacked by… a tornado?

"THAT'S the big guy, dummy!" The pink and white fox shrilled from a safe distance, morphing into a fourteen year old girl, the sides of her head shaved, revealing a glittering array of silver swirls among the white stubble, adding derisively, "Sucks to be you, _Blondie_!"

"Yeah, Blondie," jeered the Siamese cat, which had morphed into a near-identical girl, only her hair was white with brown stubble and she wore a brown velvet harlequin mask, "Sucks to be you!"


	21. Babulas and Ballerinas

As for Raina, her experience upon finding herself on the other side of the mirror was, shall we say, _different_ from Buffy's.

For one thing, a Shaggy Dog pretending to be a man (Or was it a man pretending to be a Shaggy Dog?) greeted her.

"I'm Jeremy." He or it said as she stood in the center of the twilit plain, which felt like a stage just waiting for the actors, the sets, the lights, and the audience to show up so that it could get on with business. I say "center" because no matter where she stood, she felt like she was in the center.

Raina looked down at Jeremy, who was scratching behind one ear with one booted foot, paw, ummmm, whatever. "Did you just say something?"

"Yeah, I said, "I'm Jeremy"." The Shaggy Man/Dog repeated. The foot went down and he sat looking up at her, ears perked expectantly. "Jeremy Fitzgerald. Like, I live here."

"Good for you. I'm Raina. Raina Dashinzky." She said absently while scanning the horizon around her in a slow whole body turn. So much for going through the looking glass – obviously Mr. Carroll had lied. There was nothing here that resembled a Jaberwocky whatsoever, not even so much as a Bread and Butterfly! Though it had been a while since she'd read either of Carroll's books dealing with places hidden in plain sight, she had the distinct feeling that Mr. Carroll never ONCE mentioned a dog that looked like a man or a man that looked like a dog in his travelogue as experienced by a little girl named Alice.

Particularly one that called himself Jeremy Fitzgerald.

Clearly, Mr. Carroll and Mr. Lewis plus, several other favorite childhood authors, most of them British, who had reported hidden wonderlands tucked away down rabbit holes, in the backs of old furniture, and behind mirrors over fireplaces, hadn't known what the hell they were talking about.

Either that, or her meds were getting frisky again.

Seeing a distinct shortage of White Knights, or much of anything besides the dog, mentioned earlier, and a whole lot of little footprints in the gray dust that coated the floor of this extremely boring world behind the mirror, Raina started walking towards the entryway she'd entered, intending to go back through the door (which was slowly pulling in upon itself in midair) that was a mirror or the mirror that was a door, return to her motel room, watch stupid early-morning t.v., and forget the whole thing ever happened.

"Yo!" There was a tug at the bottom of her old Navy P.T. shirt, "Down here." Jeremy had it between his unexpectedly formidable teeth and was tugging insistently. "Remember me? The dude who needs to shave every two hours?"

"What?" Raina paused mid-step, one foot already through the quietly rippling surface.

"Blondie's already gone ahead, but, like, I have a feeling you're more what's like, _needed."_

"Needed? For what?"

The dog sneezed. As far as dogs go, it was a little Old English sheepdog as mingled with say, a Schnauzer and a near-miss with an old Hollywood werewolf – in other words, a mutt in a cheap polyester uniform who sounded like Shaggy from _Scooby Doo_ , another childhood favorite of Raina's, "Follow me, and you'll find out."

"Weirder and weirder." Said Raina, but she followed "Jeremy" anyway as panting with a child's idea of what a dog's tongue looks like, he sauntered away from her on all fours, following a trail entirely made up of little footprints across the featureless, horizon-less gray plain where the dust rose under her feet only to billow back down in slow motion behind her for what seemed like hours.

Until…

…she caught sight of a group of children standing on the first change of ground she'd seen in this place of flat eternity.

She followed the Shaggy Dog up the slight, rolling incline, joining them as they stared off into the distance at what looked like a stationary tornado.

Dimly aware that the washed out looking hollow-eyed children surrounding them bore scars of disease, violent deaths, neglect, and decay, she crouched down beside the Jeremy dog, whispering, "What the hell is that?"

The Jeremy dog rose, Raina following him. He was now a short, dark-haired unkempt little man in a torn and bloody security guard's uniform badly in need of a shave. He gestured with a distorted looking hand that was neither hand or paw, but something in-between, "That, dudette, is our only protection from HER."

"Who?"

"Whoaahhhhhhh, dudette! Never say HER name out loud, that's bad jujubes!" The little man shoved his strange hands deep into the remains of his pockets, "Say that little bitch's name out loud and she'll get in and like, turn the kids on you if you do." He turned, nodding miserably at the crowd of rapt little scarecrows that stood transfixed around them. "Blondie broke him when she asked him who he was – he doesn't like to remember!"

"Blondie? You mean the girl who came through the mirror first?" Raina asked. The tornado was giving off blue sparks as lightning played across it's madly spinning face.

"Yeah." Jeremy Fitzgerald suddenly morphed back into mutt, which she now realized was a giant plushy somewhat worse for wear, "I'm just a dog, and he's a big asshole most of the time, like the lunks who used to pull my underpants up over my head every damn day in the high school gym locker room. But he's the only one here strong enough to keep HER out and the kiddies are getting restless without him."

He crouched at Raina's feet, looking up at her pleadingly from big cartoon eyes, adding "Like, dudette, I've see you, in the dreamtime, when he, no we all sleep, so he knows you. Fix him or we're all toast?"

"How?" Raina.

"I dunno!" the Jeremy mutt threw back his head and howled, "Just go in there and DO SOMETHING while I hold HER off!"

"In THERE?" Incredulously, Raina pointed at the stalled tornado.

"You got it, dudette!" Jeremy as man stood up and began clumsily jogging away from her, "Just go on in there and like, deal with shit while I buy you time!"

 _Speaking of time, or one upon a time, or more likely, time upon a once, in a fairy tale written by a man who knew the truth when he saw it even if it was a lie, there was a tin soldier who through no fault of his own, was lame._

 _One day among his brothers as they marched and drilled across the nursery floor, he looked up and saw a ballerina upon a music box._

 _So of course, he drilled and struted before her in a vain attempt to gain her heart, only to be ignored._

 _But occasionally in the telling, (just occasionally) the ballerina spots the lame tin soldier first, climbs down from of her painted pedestal, and throws her arms around him, exclaiming, "Mój skarb, skarbie, my treasure, my darling!" – only to be separated by the demon that lives inside so that the tin soldier blindly limps away, leaving the ballerina to wonder what she'd done wrong._

 _But sometimes fairy tales take on lives on their own, spinning out of control away from their creators, even as others add their own demons in a fine mist of pain and blood, inside and out – so that the ballerina picks up a sword, and goes down the rabbit hole, the storm drain, or into the labyringth in search of her toy soldier, without finding what she went looking for, even as she finds what she went looking for, leaving the ending up for the reader to decide on their own the exact meaning of "happily ever after"._

Frisky meds or not, Raina Dashinsky, the scion of a long line of tough Chicago Polish _babulas,_ grannies, deliberately walked into the maelstrom, armed only with a set of dog tags.


	22. Eye of the Vortex

Gripping the baton, arms covering her eyes and face, Buffy pushed into the howling wall of wind as it spun widdershins against the clock, grit stinging against her bare skin, staggering sideways as well as forward.

And then it stopped.

Reeling at the sudden loss of struggle, she cautiously lowered her arms, open-mouthed in wonder as she first looked upward at the brilliant green sky overhead in the dead calm at the center of the vortex, eyes widening as they slowly lowered, taking in the towering, sculpted blindingly white clouds which lined the perfect circle taking in the black and white tiles flooring it into infinity before halting abruptly at the distant, yet close figure of the uniformed man who dangled at least a foot above the ground, with his back to her, arms cruciform, face turned away in the dead center.

"Ri-i-i-i-i-iiley-y-y-y-y-y-?" Her voice juddered in her ears like a CD with a bad skip. It had to be him, the same thick blonde hair, lank over his ears, the same broad shoulders and narrow waist – but what was he doing in here? Riley should be somewhere in South America with Mrs. Finn, the extremely nice uber bitch who'd succeeded where Buffy failed.

The Slayer jog-trotted forward, each step echoing in the howling silence of the eye of the storm, passing windows suspended in nowhere, looking out on a horizon where the land was a flat brown, the edge of the lapis sky a billowing black wall of smoke as oil rigs and refineries burned uncontrolled. "R-r-r-r-r-r-rr-r-il-l-l-l-l-ey-y-y-y-y-y-y-y?" Buffy called again, voice clattering and stuttering through the thick, crystalline air, slow motion pausing to stare, echoes of herself trailing behind her, still more windows, here the sea at midnight, a waterfall over a stone, there the wind in her face, a blue flying unicorn with a rainbow mane, the sound of a motorcycle…. "R-r-r-r-r-r-rr-r-il-l-l-l-l-ey-y-y-y-y-y-y-y?"

She stumbled, looked down and saw a Cardinal football team jacket tied in a brutal knot at her feet, red as blood against the black and white tiles, the air crisp but fetid, carrion on the wind.

Dropping the baton in a slow-motion echoing clatter, Buffy picked up the jacket, untying the knots before unconsciously cradling it like a baby, eyes still on Riley, his back to her, head down, the jacket in her arms -only as she came to where his feet dangled, slowly bleeding in their boots above a dark red pool on the immaculate checkerboard the world shifted.

No, _she_ shifted.

 _… she was in a long room with a row of beds and it was dark and everyone else was asleep and Riley, no a large man, no a boy sat on the edge of one in the dimness, still dressed, a big clumsy boy with lank blonde hair, his face down, shoulders slumped, a large boy who'd been shaving every other day since he was twelve who could have passed as eighteen, too old, too old, we've changed our minds, we decided to adopt a baby instead, a nice boy but he's too old, we'd only have him for maybe three, four years, what would be the point? a baby girl from China, we could watch her grow up, he's too old, sorry if this hurts his feelings, but he's not what we're looking for on second thought, he can keep the jacket, though…_

No, Riley had a family back in Iowa, he told her so…

 _Don't leave me! I won't take up much room. I could help with the new baby… No, he's our grandson, Agatha's boy. We love him to pieces, but this was NOT how we'd planned to spend our retirement – your ma ain't nothin' but a no good crack whore, they found her naked by the roadside… grandpa who's my dad?_

 _A baby crying hungry in the dark in his own filth, wet and uncomfortable, shut away in a motel room bureau…_

Cradling the jacket, Buffy sat down next to Riley on the bed, his face hidden by his hair as something dark oozed from where his face should have been, landing thickly, wetly on the worn black and white tiles between his too-big feet on the metal framed bed in the dim gray light from the hallway, the sound of a steel door slamming in the distance surrounded by sleeping others… the stench growing stronger in the hot crystal air in the heart of the vortex, the jacket in her arms now a uniform coat, a back brace, a rent-a-cop's jacket, scalding hot. She walked around the floating man who wasn't Riley, his face averted, the edges of a mask showing, a white blood-stained tuxedo with a red bow tie as a baby cried abandoned in the dark,

 _…too big, too damned big, big boys don't cry, act your age goddamit! we're sorry, but we've decided to adopt a baby, instead. we're sure somebody else will adopt him, we'd let you on the team son but you'll be out of here in a month just like all the other fosters, group home, running away living on the streets… cold… sleeping rough… picked up three days later, in Juvenile until a place can be found, a baby crying unheeded in the dark, we love you to pieces but this wasn't how we planned to spend our… medical dischar… FAILURE! I'm nothing but a big FAILURE! who can't even remember his own NAME!_

"ENOUGH!" Buffy screamed, dropping the team jacket and covering her ears with her hands, his face still down, hidden behind a mask and it wasn't Riley, never was Riley, never had been Riley, the red jacket laying torn between them on the harshly glittering black and white tiles, the sun merciless through the eye of green overhead.

 _Hold still, submit, let it happen, it will be over soon as the titanium struts pierce my face one at a time… only it isn't over it never ends…_

…the man now in a pink and white tuxedo, shock collar bow tie around his neck, no a bear, a silent movie Keystone Cop in a baggy pink and white uniform, a boy in a man's clothes because that's the only thing that would fit, a clown's painted smile, the whip of the ringmaster, trying to be small to take up as little room as possible… a caricature of a Marine… raised his masked face and looked through her from behind it with rotting milky blue eyes, static coming from the grille in his chest, the black, earthy stench of decay dripping down the goofy pink and white cartoon bear mask from the eyes and the idiotically grinning mouth, blindly holding out his bleeding hands to her, hands that were oddly shortened… arms that had too many joints, legs with two knees head lolling, too heavy to lift…"ENOUGH!" Buffy screamed again, his raw misery so much quicksand pulling them both down, remembering how it had been when she'd seen those blue eyes glaring at her from a stage, bringing back the unreality…

 _The fear…_

 _The humiliation…_

 _Of flaking out…_

 _Of Dawnie crying…_

 _And people staring… mom and dad fighting outside the hospital room…_ "ENOUGH!"

So Buffy staked him.

And suddenly the whirling, knife edged grit.

Stopped.

Leaving Raina standing, hands protecting her face, to lower those hands as the grit, the stinging salt, the sand…

…pulled in on itself into a big boiling dark cloud overhead.

Revealing the girl who swore she didn't know Mike from Adam standing back as Mike plummeted, no it was a bear, a gigantic cartoon bear, landing face down on a patch of stained and cracked black and white tiles with a heavy thud that shook the ground, driving the wooden steak deeper into it's chest … Raina stooped and picked up the baton, ready to swing, the girl turned around staring at her blankly over the body of the bear, blood spreading around it in a reeking pool, "What the hell have you done?" Raina screamed, "What the hell have you done?

She shoved the girl aside, "What the hell have you done?"

Gagging at the stench, Raina dropped the baton and struggled to roll him over, no, the ridiculous cartoon bear with its red bow tie and stubby paws, the white tuxedo stained nearly black. "What the hell… have you done?"

She finally managed to rock the heavy thing over with a metallic grating noise so that it lay, blood dripping face to the sky, blue cartoon eyes blank and askew, "Ohhhhh, what the hell have you done?"

Buffy fell heavily to her knees, shaking her head before reaching for the stake that was now deeply driven into the thing's chest where a heart should be.

Raina slapped her hands away, snapping, "You've already done enough." She stood, and bracing one foot on the thing's battered and dented candy pink chest, gave a big heave, pulling the length of sharpened baseball bat out with a metallic squeal before hurling it away from her, "You murdering bitch!" she screamed at Buffy who was now rocking back and forth, eyes blank, arms around her knees, "You were supposed to fix what you broke, not kill it!"


	23. Bug Out

Furious, Raina advanced on the Slayer, "I said, what the hell did you think you were doing, bitch? _Answer me!_ "

That's when Buffy stopped rocking and slowly pointed upwards, mouth agape. Despite her outrage, Raina found her own eyes going the same way.

"Holy shit. What's that?" Raina said in a very, very small voice

"That's not a _what_ , dude." the Shaggy Dog whined from where he crouched at her feet, ears flat and tail tucked under, "That's _a WHO!"_

The boiling cloud of grit coalesced into a vast round face with big, staring green eyes, framed by unnaturally red hair in pigtails, like a gigantic toddler somebody had painted up to look like a clown, and it looked pissed off. "Like sorry, I couldn't distract HER. Once SHE notices somebody, there's no stopping HER. And you just got HER attention!"

The bear clumsily rolled over on all fours, only to collapse heavily on its face, the ragged children along with the Cat and the Fox surrounding it, anxiously patting at it, moaning, eyes huge, tugging, urging it back upright so that it rose, straightening, before falling back on its haunches, mouth gaping up at the sky while shaking it's massive pink and white head, bracing itself forward on it's stubby front paws even as a hand reached down from the sky.

Holding the box with a single red button on it.

The thumb of the chubby, nail-less hand paused, and then pressed the button.

Convulsing, the bear toppled over sideways with a grinding screech, blue sparks coruscating across it's shiny plastic hide, limbs thrashing. Raina threw herself on top of it, electricity slamming through her like a tidal wave, but somehow she held on, what hair she had left under her NAVY ball cap standing on end.

And then it was over, "We're lucky she only zapped HIM and not the rest of us this time! Get him up! Get him to open wide or we're all puppy chow!" screamed the Shaggy Dog, "Say "ahhhhhh" you big jerk, open wide!"

Shaken, Raina looked up over her shoulder, only to see the giant thumb slowly, tauntingly descend towards the button. Without questioning the logic of any of this she heaved the bear into a sitting position where it fell back on it's huge, tubby butt, mouth sagging impossibly wide, like a snake eating an egg, the children surging around her.

The thumb descended, a distant, booming giggle echoing around them... the bear shook it's head, and took an impossibly deep breath for something that didn't breathe, mouth widening. At first the size of a bucket, the size of a barrel, the size of a doorway while the children, with the Shaggy Dog barking and bounding behind them, herding them like so many sheep, darted minnow-like without a backward glance into the bear's gaping maw, the wind of his inhaling tugging at Raina, at Buffy as his arms somehow scooped them both up along with the Shaggy Dog into the blackness.


	24. Thwarted

...leaving nothing nothing in the land of dry tears but a single, rapidly diminishing blue pinpoint of light, which abruptly winked out, leaving behind a very, very angry Circus Baby, who stood holding a box with a single red button adorning it in a sea of dried tears dotted with hundreds of tiny footprints.


	25. See, Want, Take

_Circus Baby straightened, still holding the box._

 _Her painted on smile seemed to brighten as she stirred with one stubby hand complete with ice cream nozzle fingers the entrails of the bear where it lay, thorax open, on the charging table among the others in the half-light of Maintenance._

 _Her fingers sifted thoughtfully through the now-dried contents: a jawbone missing teeth, a rag, a boot, a loose tuft of hair there, snapped femurs there, skin so much torn paper._

 _Sooooooooo, her dancing bear had once more gotten away, taking all the new toys with him._

 _How very, very inconsiderate of him, when he was supposed to share._

 _A rattle of finger bones, some of them snapped in two, missing teeth, broken ribs, the smell of old death, all anchors for someone who dared defy her, who wouldn't play the game and took the others to hide with him into the maze SHE had built for her own entertainment._

 _Well, let him win this round, what was left of him._

 _In the end, Baby always won, and she had what would let her win in her pocket – if he could steal her favorite toy, she had stolen his memory, his sanity._

 _And in the end, Circus Baby would win._

 _Because Baby always got what Baby wanted._

 _And the man with white hair would help her get it._


	26. Rose Red, she made her a man

_And in the darkness Raina felt the many hands of the children drawn into the bear's mouth, taking her with them, plucking at her clothes, whispering nervously that things were very much bad and that she, she needed to fix them._

 _So she rose, allowing them to pull at her with sticky little hands to a formless mass in the void as they wordlessly pleaded with her to fix it, fix the broken toy, bandage the cut finger, mend what needed mending, find what needs finding because she was the grown up and even if grown ups had betrayed them, that's what grown ups were for._

 _She gathered the shapeless mass in her arms to move it, but it kept spilling out in all directions, for there was an awful lot of it, until she remembered a tale that one of her_ _ _babulas_ , her grannies had told her a long time ago. "Can you get me hot water? Can you get me light?"_

 _"Yes." came the silent reply all around her. And the two girls, the fox and the cat dragged a steel washtub full of steaming water through the rising gray light of dawn even as a fire sprang up on a hearth she barely remembered, lighting a cabin as she spilled what she held into the tub._

 _Though what overflowed the tub was loathsome, peeling back the dirty fur, she scrubbed and she washed, layers of filth and of excrement, vomit and dried blood; carried away by the water overflowing onto the floor, replenished by the buckets the children poured for her, bringing her broken bones and memories, dried eyes and loose teeth, clots of hair and torn skin like parchment, as Isis to Osiris, as Eve to Able, her murdered son, readying him for burial, first a baby, than a boy-child…_

 _…neck broken, blank-eye and clean of limb, kneading and pulling in a wooden bread trough the size of the world, a mother bear licking her cub from shapelessness into shape, adding memory and milk, spices and wine…_

 _…now a young man, broke-limbed and lank haired…_

 _…filling out: a man curled in on himself as below on the beach seagulls greeted the dawn, the sun gilding the mountains from behind, Raina doing as women have forever done, tidying the aftermath when all tumbles down so that when the sun paints the sea, Rose Red laid her work out on the hearthstone on clean linen to rise, before stumbling to bed, the ghosts of the past guarding her newborn revelation._


	27. In a country of our own

Buffy turned around and found herself standing barefoot on the porch of a rustic little cabin overlooking the sea, with a dog at her feet. A large man with his back to her sat just inside the open doorway at a small table, reading the paper, big bare feet comfortably propped up on another chair, a cup of coffee close to hand as the seagulls cried in the early dawn light.

He absently reached over, took a cookie from a plate, put it in his mouth, and chewing, picked up the coffee mug beside it, took a slow swallow without looking up from the paper, and placed the mug back on the table.

A log in the nearby fireplace gave off sparks as it settled, glowing briefly.

He absently reached over, took a cookie from a plate, put it in his mouth, and chewing, picked up the coffee mug beside it, took a slow swallow without looking up from the paper, and placed the mug back on the table.

A log in the nearby fireplace gave off sparks as it settled, glowing briefly.

The dog, a shaggy mutt stood up, shook itself all over, looked briefly into her face, and trotted down the redwood steps and across the parking lot past two motorcycles and into the dense pine forest, the sound of seabirds and waves filling in the silence.

He absently reached over, took a cookie from a plate, put it in his mouth, and chewing, picked up the coffee mug beside it, took a slow swallow without looking up from the paper, and placed the mug back on the table.

A log in the nearby fireplace gave off sparks as it settled, glowing briefly.

Buffy caught a motion on the bare floorboards around him. Someone was doodling on the floor with colored chalk, a child's drawing, no, many children's drawings appearing line by line at and around her feet.

He absently reached over, took a cookie from a plate, put it in his mouth, and chewing, picked up the coffee mug beside it, took a slow swallow without looking up from the paper, and placed the mug back on the table.

A log in the nearby fireplace gave off sparks as it settled, glowing briefly.

Frowning, Buffy leaned in the doorway, calling, "Knock. Knock."

He absently reached over, took a cookie from a plate, put it in his mouth, and chewing, picked up the coffee mug beside it, took a slow swallow without looking up from the paper, and placed the mug back on the table.

A log in the nearby fireplace gave off sparks as it settled, glowing briefly.

The Slayer stepped around the creepy self-perpetuating drawings, passing an open doorway to a small bedroom with a double bed. Someone lay under the covers, one arm over their eyes.

The man, still wearing that goofy cartoon bear mask, turned in the simple wooden chair, one hand halfway to the coffee cup, the other holding the newspaper. There was the sound of static as he put a finger over the lips of the cartoon bear, briefly inclining his head towards the sleeping woman.

The mask wept blood.

Puzzled Buffy sat down on the floor where drawings weren't appearing and disappearing, found a piece of chalk and idly began doodling herself.

He absently reached over, took a cookie from a plate, put it in his mouth, and chewing, picked up the coffee mug beside it, took a slow swallow without looking up from the paper, and placed the mug back on the table.

A log in the nearby fireplace gave off sparks as it settled, glowing briefly.

There was a footstep. Buffy glanced up. Looking rumpled, Raina came out of the bedroom, stepping over a large pair of boots.

"I remember this place." She said carefully walking around the self-perpetuating scribbles, "Obviously, so does he, all the way down to the _piernik_ , the gingerbread cookies one of my __babula_ s_, my grannies, sent me for Christmas – he'd never had anything like them before." The large man clumsily held out the coffee cup. Accepting it, she took a long, slow swallow from where his lips had touched it, leaning against him as she sat on the arm of his chair, free hand absently ruffling the bristles of his buzzcut, adding, "He ate the whole bag while I was still asleep that morning. When I told my _babula_ about it, she sent him his own bag with a note that German last name or not, he'd better come to Chicago to let her look him over once he'd finished eating them all!"

Mike sighed and leaned his head against her side. The plate of cookies looked as untouched as the first time Buffy had seen him take one and eat it, and the mug was still full.

"But I don't remember the mask." Raina took another swallow. "Mike, you don't need this. I'm not afraid of what it hides." The fingers of the hand that had been caressing his hair slid down to where plastic met flesh. He stiffened and then relaxed, allowing her to pull the it off and toss it into the fire, where it flared, smoked, and went up the chimney, a ghostly image in ash.

Raina gently returned the cup. Fascinated, Buffy paused in her art, watching as he accepted it with both stubby hands, still seated, drinking with his back to her.

The dog returned, taking up a vigilant pose across the threshold of the door, the drawings shifting around him.

"I brought you something, if you want it back." Raina pulled the baton out of thin air and placed it across his knees..

The large man froze, shoulders in his long-sleeved black t-shirt tense. Raina took the hand that wasn't holding a cup in hers and placed it against her heart while gently stroking it, suddenly it was a normal human hand, before guiding it to the baton, the seabird cries echoing through the open windows. There was a snatch of song, of static, "So this is a new place you made for us and the children where SHE can't get in?" Raina said as he took his hand away from the baton and put it around her waist where she sat. "Thank you, it's lovely."

Buffy frowned, "You understand him?"

"And you don't?"

More music, more static, a sound like the changing of channels on Mexican radio late at night when the sky is indigo black and thick with stars. Buffy shook her head, picked up the chalk and resumed drawing. "Nope."

Raina rose, pushed aside the newspaper, and sat on the table in front of Mike, leaning forward while taking his still unseen face between her hands, "That's not so bad. I've seen worse." She kissed his forehead and the big man took her hands in his, slowly kissing the palms one at a time before folding both of them in his. "I see you remember, _that."_

She giggled, and kissed him again.

Acutely uncomfortable, the only boyfriend who'd ever done this with her had been Spike.

Who was now running around somewhere in the dark, giggling.

A lot.

"Ewwww, old people smoochies!" The Slayer grumbled, turning her back.

"Where do you think young people come from?" Raina laughed. There was a burst of static and Buffy looked up, catching a brief glimpse of blue eyes over the big man's black clad shoulder.

He winked.

"EWWWWWWWW! That's as gross as when mom and dad still got along!"

"Gross or not, I have a gift for you, Michael." Buffy looked up, "Something you lost. I think you'll like it." Raina said teasingly as she pulled one hand free and reached around her neck, "No, no, close your eyes, _misio_ , teddy bear." She paused and slipped the dog tags that she'd removed her own neck over the big man's head and held them up for him to see. "Now open them – _now_ do you remember who you are?"

There was a long silence. Finally he nodded, slowly closing his hand over hers where it held the tags.

A burst of static, a snatch of music, "NO, I never forgot you, Schmidt, Michael J." Raina said. She held up her right wrist, displaying three red metal bracelets, "See? One for uncle Eryk who went down over 'Nam. One for my… big brother, John, who was in Afghanistan (you met him once, over the phone) … and one for _you_." Raina handed one to the man whose lap she was perched upon, "Guess I'll have to surrender this one, 'cause I found you!"


	28. Etude for Dawn and Bird

_What stood up in front of the fireplace before a dawn that he had to create himself, was Mike, but not Mike._

 _It was the bear. It wasn't the bear._

 _It was a composition of itself, and of the memories of others._

 _And it walked ponderously, clumsily, padding with increasing grace to the scent of gingerbread, stepping over the sleeping children which littered the floor, past the cuddle puddle of the Fox and the Cat, memory shaping where the table was, shaping the table, the chair, the plate, the mug, the window, and the newspaper._

 _Memory shaped a porch._

 _Memory shaped the sea._

 _Memory shaped the land cloaked in redwoods, dropping abruptly away into the sea._

 _Memory set the rounded stones of the fireplace, the hearth: one by one._

 _Memory urged a barely remembered bird to sing as the eastern horizon became pearl, even as memory glinted from the chrome of two motorcycles, the early morning fog beading in a spider's web, beading the grass._

 _It lumbered quietly into the bedroom, stepping over the memory of boots, of the sleeping forms of ragged children, and stood swaying slightly, looking down at what the bed held._

 _It could be a lie, what it saw. Baby's maze held many lies._

 _Still, what had risen held out what was left of it's hands and touched._

 _If this was a lie, it was a good one._

 _The bear, the man, sat on the memory of a floor, leaning against the memory of a bed, holding the hand of a memory for just a little while; listening to the memories of the one good day it could remember clearly._

 _When everything was alive._

 _When he/it was alive._

 _As the memory of the sun rose over the mountains, turning the memory of the sea silver kissed with gold and the memory of birds called and sang, the bear, the man rose, stepped over the sleepers, and treading the memory of rough boards under its bare feet, sat down at the memory of a table, to drink the memory of coffee, of gingerbread, the memory of a newspaper, to hold the line, to create a safe space for everyone, for as long as his strength held out._


	29. Reality is where you find it

Having had enough of other people's touchy feelies, Buffy rose, dusting off her butt, which was covered in chalk dust, saying, "While you two trade smoochies, I think I'll go have a look around!" as she worked her way towards the door through the maze of children's drawings that flickered and shifted around her feet.

"Have fun." Raina mumbled waving a hand at her dismissively. The man bear gave out another burst of static that sounded suspiciously like a laugh at Buffy's expense while the Fox and the Cat merely opened an eye or two before stretching out even more luxuriantly in front of the fire in the fireplace.

The Slayer stepped over the shaggy mutt who lay stretched out on his back, everything hanging out, across the threshold of the open door.

His back feet were wearing black combat boots.

Buffy stepped down off of the porch and onto the graveled path into an impossibly bright morning, dew like so much spilled glitter from Dawnie's crafts coating everything. She walked towards the two motorcycles parked at the edge of the nearby parking lot and studied them.

They were solid, and cast shadows, but they were… flat? Like a photograph? She reached out to touch a gleaming, water-beaded handle.

"Don't be too disappointed if you can't really feel that bike, blondie."

She jumped, startled, and looked down. The mutt had followed her and was now sitting at her feet, one ear up, one ear down. "Jeremy, warn me next time!"

"Whatever." The Shaggy Dog rose, becoming an unkempt little man with dark hair in the remains of a rent-a-cop uniform and a tail. He reached out one pawlike hand and slapped the bike where she had intended to touch it with a flat thump, as if it had been made of cardboard, "Son of a bitch may be an asshole and a dumb jock, but DAMN! He's good!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Look at this place!" Jeremy the Shaggy Dog waved his arms at the distant mountains, the ocean as it roared and hissed against the rocks and sand below, the gulls, the sun, the cabin, "I've three degrees, including a Ph.D from CalTech in Quantum Physics that I got when I was eighteen, and, and I can't do this!"

"You? Quantum Physics? A Ph.D? You look like something that lives under a bridge!" Buffy blurted out in disbelief, and then slapped both hands over her mouth. Jeremy didn't seem to notice. He continued, still waving his arms, honking out in a flat voice:

"I mean, LOOK at this level of DETAIL!" he spun, pointing at random, "Dude's batshit crazy, can't even focus half the time but he can do this and I CAN'T and it's not RIGHT!" He aimed a vicious kick at the bigger of the two bikes and then yelled, "And the worst part is, it's SOLID – owwwwwwwwwwowowowowowowowowowo!"

He sat down abruptly on the damp ground clutching his foot, almost but not quite a dog again.

"Ummmmm, yeah." Buffy backed away, finding the view of the beach a lot more interesting all of a sudden. This guy would have been too weird for even the Nerd Herd!

He joined her, back to man dog/dog man once again as she watched the waves on the beach down below. The same waves, the same seagull, the same wind blowing the same long grass, the sun exactly where it was when she first stepped out of the cabin, like a CD with a skip in it. "And you know what burns my ass?" he said conversationally while scratching with one booted back foot behind his floppy ear.

"What?" Buffy asked absently, fascinated. There went the same seagull, the same waves cresting. She started counting. There it went again.

"He can even sometimes bring physical objects INTO the maze: a newspaper, a bottle of beer, a sandwich, and this time, his own piece of ass!" The Shaggy Dog grumbled. He flopped over on his back, once more, showing the world everything he had, moaning sensuously as he scratched his back on the ground. He opened one eye, staring up at her, tongue lolling, "You don't suppose he brought you for…?"

"No." Buffy said flatly. The seagull glided past, the waves crested. "Anyway, if you're so darned smart, why are you… well, you?"

"Like I said, Asperger's a bitch when nobody but you acknowledges it."

The seagull glided past, the waves crested, the grass blew.

"Oh."

 _Ms. Letitia Fitzgerald, Jeremy's mother, loved the poor, the oppressed, and the voiceless._

 _If it was oppressed, she would stand up for it._

 _If it was poor, she'd run a fundraiser._

 _If it was voiceless, she'd find a way to speak for it._

 _Autism was her favorite, but when her son, who was supposed to be perfect, wasn't, it didn't exist._

 _It was all very well and good to speak for the unfortunate, but misfortune was something that happened to other people, not Ms. Letitia Fitzgerald._

 _Jeremy could manipulate numbers like Beethoven manipulated music._

 _But he was clumsy and unkempt and terrified of the bathtub and slow to talk and laugh as a baby– so she ordered the illegals she hired on the cheap to run her six houses and three penthouses, to deal with the baby who cried flatly in his designer crib and over-reacted to change because the world needed saving._

 _By the time Jeremy was twelve, though he now spoke like a robot and often forgot to put his pants on, his teachers said he was capable of more advanced work even if they thought, in their professional opinion, that the boy needed... help. So, while ignoring the latter she signed the papers for the former on her way to testify at a congressional hearing on behalf of Asperger's, and thought no more of it._

 _Though mercilessly bullied at the exclusive schools that she placed him in, Jeremy could see the way the universe worked in a stream of numbers – even as his eccentric behavior, messy appearance, and tendency to blurt whatever was on his mind out in public embarrassed her at more than one $1,000/plate black tie fundraiser in Palm Beach._

 _It was very noble and self-sacrificing to speak for those who couldn't speak for themselves in between weeks at various exclusive spas, but it better not be in her family – so she ignored his latest melt-down over the sensation of his new designer socks on her way to conferences in Europe on behalf of Spectrum Disorders while unseen, he got a Ph.D in Quantum Physics, graduated, moved out of her Beverly Hills mansion, and disappeared off of the face of the Earth, taking with him his embarrassing melt-downs, his action figures, his comic books, his one topic conversations, and his D &D dice._

 _Which had been a relief._

 _For both of them._

 _Ms. Letitia Fitzgerald got on with arranging for Lady Gaga to make an appearance on behalf of AIDS research in some exclusive club in Manhattan when she wasn't asking Madonna to donate some of her time in between tours on behalf of children who'd stepped on landmines somewhere in the Middle East while her son was murdered undetected and un-mourned in a cheesy kiddie entertainment complex, at the only real-world job he'd ever succeeded at._


	30. Got cookies?

Buffy, who'd had enough of Jeremy, decided to walk along the shore below BY HERSELF. Once Ms. Dashinsky and whatever it was he/it called itself got whatever it was between them out of their systems, they might be willing to help her round up Spike and help them get out of here – all while avoiding a gigantic psycho toddler with horrible fashion sense.

As the same seagull flew past in front of her just off the edge of the cliff five more times, Buffy reached the top of the wooden stairs that led to the beach below. Hand reaching for the railing, Buffy tried to step on them only to… _not._

She stood back, cautiously prodding at what was and what wasn't a solid wall that looked like a seascape, complete with cresting waves and seabirds.

It was like something from one of the old Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons that she and her dad used to watch together before mom got up on Saturday mornings when she was little: the Roadrunner would paint a tunnel on the side of a mountain and the OCD Coyote would mistake it for the real thing and go ker-splattttttt, face first into solid reality.

Lucky she'd not been running for the beach, then.

Running for the beach? Cute.

Broken nose? Not so cute.

She ran her hands up and down the cool, slick surface, eyes telling her that she should be touching thin air and then rough wood, grass, stone, bark, hands telling that her eyes were big ol' liars.

The air smelled of evergreens, redwoods, damp earth, salt, and sand.

No, the air smelled of some one else's MEMORY of evergreens, redwoods, damp earth, salt, and sand.

The seagull went past again, the same wave crashed on the beach below.

"Yo." Buffy looked down at her feet on the memory of grass. The disgusting, pop-eyed blue bunny puppet with no filters was pulling on the cuff of her yoga pants with its teeth. "Pick me up you big stupid." It mumbled at her around the black fabric in a featureless voice full of hissing static.

Wrinkling her nose at the repugnant little thing's demand, the Slayer stepped back, "No."

"Ok, then, I'll just climb up your leg using my teeth because my arms don't work so good without Mike's hand up my ass."

"All right, all right!" Buffy stooped and gingerly picked the nasty blue thing up with the tips of her fingernails up off the memory of grass and then nearly threw it back to the memory of ground when it suddenly slipped over one of her hands, "Ewwww, you tricked me!"

"No, I didn't. All I did was ask you to pick me, Bon-Bon, up." The thing said back to her in her own voice as it dusted itself off with its now functioning tiny blue paws. Cocking an ear towards her, it added, "And you did – of your own free will."

"Go to hell." Buffy said.

"Already done did that, Miss." The bunny leered, "And speaking of hell, I wouldn't be so comfy 'round Jeremy, if I was you."

"So, he's a little skeezy and smells like feet and stale cheese dip – there's no law against that!"

"That's not what I meant, you big dummy." The pop-eyed thing rolled its eyes, "Yeesh, does I have to spell it out for you?"

Buffy said nothing, digesting the idea of a self-propelled blue bunny puppet that sounded like a stereotypical New York cabbie from an old black and white movie. Her silence was taken as permission to continue, "Anyways, do NOT turn your back on the Shaggy Dog. He's fluffy and he don't act too bright even if he IS a genius, but he's about as trustworthy as your average politician around a slush fund when there's a blonde in the room.

"Why?"

"He told you. Weren't you listenin'?" The blue rabbit rolled it's protruding eyes in exasperation – "F'starters, he hates Mike – as in: yadda yadda, Mike can do what he can't yadda yadda, Mike's a big stupid fuck but he can shape the dream when Jeremy's got all that math in his head, yadda yadda, Jeremy's knows how it works but can't do it, yadda yadda, while crazy or not, the big palooka who looks like every dumb jock that ever pulled Jeremy's underpants elastic over his head from behind while he was still wearin' 'em, can, and a root-toot-tooty and a hot cha-cha! Want I should draw youse a picture, lady?"

There was the sound as of an elementary school letting out for the summer, followed by a door slam.

Bon-Bon looked over Buffy's shoulder, dragging her hand with it, "Well, that'll take a while— that is IF "you know who" lets 'em." The thing shook it's head, sniggering, "Oy vey, dead as a mackerel, but still interested. Got any cookies?"

The thing's voice got serious as it dragged her left hand around so that it faced her, "Didn't think so. Anyways, just watch it. Mike and "you know who" have been duking it out for years, and Jeremy never really chose sides. Catch my drift, knobby knees?"

"Hey, my knees aren't—" there was a tearing sound, as if the world's larges phone book had just been ripped in half. Buffy spun and gaped. The sea behind her was gone, replaced by a white jagged edge that stretched into dark infinity.

Bon-Bon jeering, she began running towards the cabin, the echoes of a second tear growing behind her.


	31. Snapshot

_RIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPP! Circus Baby giggled, slowly tearing the worn, faded photograph she'd found among what filled the pink and white bear's torso: scraps of skin, of hair, torn clothing, worn boots, snapped femurs, loose ribs, and a worn leather wallet with all sorts of interesting things in it. RIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPP!_

Once upon a time, a very tall man awakened with a start before just before noon on a rainy Saturday. The rain that had sent him and his companion scurrying inside the night before was easing off little by little, as disoriented by the utterly alien sensation of sharing a bed, he'd lain there listening to the diminishing rain on the roof, eyes closed and arms around her, her hair tickling his chin as the birds started to sing. In the other room the fire in the little fireplace popped and muttered to itself.

"This is too good to last," something inside of him said, "You'll blow it somehow, and then… _shut the fuck up!"_

Arm now an agonized tingle, the very tall man eased it out from under her, and rose, wrapping the bedspread around his waist. Absently scratching at the badly botched tattoo on his right shoulder blade that he'd got right after Basic before somebody decided that he was officer material, he padded into the john as the little window overlooking the parking lot and their two motorcycles brightened. He noticed himself in the mirror over the little sink and grinned. Hell, he was on leave, why bother shaving?

 _RIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPP!_

The single bulb over the mirror glinted off the blued steel studs he'd put in at the gas station once they were off base, catching his eye. He'd pierced his ears when he was sixteen to impress a girl, who, it turned out, didn't give a shit what he did, but he'd kept them anyway in the bottom of his shaving kit. The holes, unused for over ten years miraculously hadn't healed over, but it'd been a bit of a struggle to get them in after all that time. His girlfriend, who was picking out road food had looked him up and down when he'd come out of the grubby one-seater john, reached over, briefly touched his throbbing ears, one after the other, and then smiled at him in approval.

Maybe he'd shave after all.

So the very tall man did, leaving the beginning of a soul patch under his lower lip just to see if she'd notice _._

Thinking he'd go out and get them coffee at the diner they'd eaten at the night before a mile up the road, the very tall man dressed in the half darkness of the departing storm, stepping over their stuff, hastily scattered the night before, and pocketed the cheap disposable camera he'd bought on impulse in that same gas station somewhere between Miramar and Big Sur before sitting on the damp boards of the little front porch to tie his running shoes while watching the tide come in.

 _RIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPP!_

He'd never owned a camera in his life – other people took pictures, sometimes he got copies. But aside from the pictures on his driver's license and military I.D., what was the point?

 _RIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPP!_

The very tall man studied the cheap cardboard and plastic thing, and blinked, startled when he accidentally took a picture of his own nostrils, the flash leaving a floater across his vision that faded as he started an easy jog up the road that fronted the row of little cabins, mostly empty that they had passed in the rain the night before. Though an inexperienced rider, he'd done pretty good, not wiping out once in the rain even through there had been a few close calls on some of the tighter turns on the coastal highway.

The camera was a hard angular lump in the front pocket of his hooded sweatshirt when he came to a stop and turned around about a quarter mile up the woodland road and faced the Pacific and the cabin he'd just left. For the same unnameable reason that he'd bought the stupid thing in the first place, he took a picture of where he'd spent the night, a seagull cutting across the picture even as a wave crested.

 _RIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPP! As far as Circus Baby was concerned, what was the point in existing, if you couldn't ruin someone else's fun?_


	32. A Puff of Sand and Salt

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPP!

Buffy hadn't realized she could run any faster until the third tearing noise resounded directly above her. A quick glance overhead told her that the sky was now gone, leaving the horizon a jagged mass of torn trees and a missing ocean against the black of nothing – her dash became a sprint as she made for the cabin.

She bypassed the steps, clattering across the rough boards towards the front door, which was solidly shut.

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPP!

Buffy looked over her shoulder behind her. There went the seagull. She started pounding on the door with her free hand even as she rattled the doorknob, "There's something horrible going on out here - no time for smoochies!"

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPP!

Reflexively, Buffy ducked, part of the porch was now missing.

Rapid approaching footsteps shook the cabin and the door was abruptly yanked open, dragging Buffy, who'd not bothered to let go of the doorknob, halfway into the room, which was now cut off at ceiling level.

Mike, whatever he was, frowned down at her from beneath the brim of a desert colored helmet, face fully focused, almost, but not quite human. Buffy nearly lost her balance as he rapidly pushed past her sideways, taking up most of the doorway, rifle butt clipping her painfully on the shoulder on the way past, sending her stumbling into Ms. Dashninsky, who was in what looked like a flight suit, a flight helmet dangling from one hand as she ran past the Slayer onto the porch.

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPP!

Mike, in what Buffy recognized from her days with the Initiative as full battle dress, now stood, rifle hard aport in the parking lot in front of the cabin, looking up, face tense, eyes scanning, the aura of a bear a nimbus around him.

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPP!

He easily sidestepped the fresh tear, signaling with one hand as he slung the rifle over one shoulder, pulling something that shouldn't have fit in in a cargo pocket on his pink and tan blotched BDU trousers.

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPP!

The tiny footprints gathered around him in the rising dust at his feet and he waved them back while shaking out what looked like an empty duffel bag before tossing it to the ground in front of him three body-lengths away.

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPP!

The tiny footprints stayed put as he lumbered forward and kneeled, opened the empty bag that now lay on the ground so that it gaped, while pulling a long ivory sword, no, it was a flute out of… the Slayer blinked… somewhere?

Eyeing the sky, the bear man/man bear put the instrument to his lips and began to play, the ground around him stirring, little footprints lining up behind him. Still playing, he rose and began circling, march-limping around the dissolving cabin clearing in a tightening spiral past Buffy along a path of yellow bricks she hadn't noticed before, the bag as anchoring center.

Overhead, the face of Circus Baby swam into focus, and the spiral sped up, the tune an old overplayed Tom Petty Song, "Runnin' Down a Dream", Raina and the Shaggy Dog bringing up the rear.

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPP!

"Yo, hurry, blondie!" Jeremy yelled as he dashed past, "SHE'S back and this place is like, toast, dude!"

Mike now stood beside the duffel bag, playing faster and faster as the little footprints streamed into the gaping mouth of the heavy canvas sack with USMC stenciled on the side, followed by Raina in a flight suit and then Jeremy, almost, but not quite a man in a torn rent-a-cop uniform as the pudgy hand of Circus Baby began to reach for them.  
"Don't be an idiot, hurry up!" Ms. Dashinsky snagged the Slayer by the elbow and yanked her along behind her to God only knew where - RIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPP!

"No, no, no! This is all wrong!" Stumbling, Buffy pulled free and looked up. The flute made an impatient noise - Mike stopped playing and gestured at her with the long ivory flute with an odd knob on the end like a cop directing traffic with a baton. "How can we trust any of this? Where the hell are we going?"

The pudgy hands rapidly dipped closer, and with the memory of a long gone weekend road trip to Big Sur dissolving around her, the Slayer decided that diving headfirst into a duffel bag full of God knows what sure beat what was coming at her, and stumbling, aimed herself at the opening, even the ground dissipated beneath her sneakers into the void.

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPP!

As the halves of the cabin fluttered away, Mike shoved the flute into the back of his belt, and with Bon Bon clinging to the barrel of his rifle like an ugly little blue flag, quickly stepped into the bag, yanking it upright and over his head with both hands before pulling it shut behind him so that it sucked in on itself, leaving behind a brief pucker in reality as both of Circus Baby's chubby mitts closed on nothing but a puff of sand and salt.

 _The man with white hair, yammering and laughing to himself, drifted randomly in the eddies of the void until a current of nothing pulled him backwards into a…_


	33. It's only a paper sun

After what felt like hours walking through a dark tunnel, Raina noticed a light ahead. With a cheer, the children surged around her towards it, the Cat and the Fox leading, the Shaggy Dog barking as tail held high, he brought up the rear, leaving her alone to walk out of the stuffy darkness into a high, white place that stretched into infinity.

Only it didn't.

Or, it wasn't.

Or did it?

Streaming past her, the children gained color as the land pulled itself out of nothing, surging up, forming a horizon that was a mass of jagged crayon mountains, trampling springy grass was hundreds, no, _thousands_ , no MILLIONS of green crayon marks, underfoot.

Here there was a house, jagged, lopsided, with windows that would never line up, an impossibly tilted chimney sending up spiraling chalk smoke mingled with cotton balls, and many, many doors.

Over there were lollipop trees covered with lopsided apples that could have been pears that could have been oranges.

Or were they bananas? Grapes? It was hard to tell!

Triangle pine trees sprouted in all directions on hills that looked like upside down U's, some of them paper, some of them painted, and some of them Christmas trees— all with utterly no regard to gravity, their growth perpendicular to the angle they sprouted from as birds (Or were they upside down W's?) flapped overhead while improbably smiling rabbits, cats, dogs, and hamsters in equally improbable colors scampered and mingled with cotton ball sheep, chocolate bears, purple tigers, and orange lions with electric pink manes, while rainbow colored cows gave chocolate and strawberry flavored milk and polychrome dinosaurs stalked to and fro.

Raina looked down; the children at her feet were busily scribbling, painting, and pasting in the details of the world around her and it was… _wonderful._

She stepped forward out of the shadow of the tunnel, navigating around the busy children who no longer showed signs of neglect, grievous injury, or starvation as they threw their art supplies aside, and ran off with crudely drawn balls, hoops, dolls and teddy bears into meadows starred with daisies that were little more than rough yellow circles with radiating ziggy zaggy scribbles for petals while the bees who harvested from them them were flat, smiling creatures with smiles and very, very large stingers.

Something inched across Raina's bare foot. She leaned over to take a better look: a worm made of macaroni and yarn looked up at her with a bright smile before inching along towards her other foot, minding its own business – which was to turn into a chunky peanut butter and jellyfly.

Grape, if the purple goo oozing cheerfully out from between the layers of its wings was any indication.

Underfoot, pebbles that were really beans, bits of dry pasta, and un-popped popcorn formed a path to a long, low hill covered with golden, waving grass that smelled of spice. Ahead of her she saw Mike, pack shed, head down, and shoulders slumped, as right leg dragging, he hop-limped, up the slope, the flute dangling loosely from one hand.

"Michael... _Mike!_ Wait up!" she called, breaking into a padding run, the beans, macaroni and popcorn scattering at her feet with each step. But he didn't appear to have heard her as he made his slow, painful way to the top of the golden grassed hill, only to sit down with as much grace as a falling tree in a thunderstorm.

Only then did he seem to notice her approach, briefly glancing over his shoulder at her, goofy bear mask contrasting bizarrely with his helmet. She was almost within touching distance when he slid the flute with its odd, knobby end back into his injured leg.

Which straightened immediately even as he toppled over backwards, hands spread, mask skyward, blue eyes blank as somewhere in the daylight world, a blue-eyed pink and white animatronic bear in a white tuxedo toppled over backwards in the middle of a performance, battery inexplicably drained, leads smoking.

Raina ran forward, sprinting the last few steps, catching Mike before his head could hit the ground, cushioning it on her lap as she sat in among the waving golden grass which smelled of spice, only to find a baby in a camo onesie heavy in her arms, sucking his thumb, head against her shoulder, fast asleep.

She looked up at the painted blue sky with its crayon yellow sun. At each cardinal point she saw a soldier in full battle dress alertly facing outward, so large that the cotton ball clouds drifted past their hazy, distant profiles even as the baby in her arms slowly expanded from a toddler to a small boy who grew so heavy that she had to lay him down on the golden grass, pillowing his head on her lap after removing the mask and violently throwing it aside, not realizing that somewhere along the journey into the bag her flight suit had transformed into a blue and purple tutu.

 _…Spike landed on his side in bright white light. Despite the fog he'd been moving in for longer than he could remember, he screamed, expecting to burst into flame._

 _Only he didn't._

 _A second thought made him freeze and as William, curl up into a fetal ball – he was back in a holding tank of the Initiative's and everything THAT meant, and William simply wasn't up to THAT at the moment.._

 _After a near eternity and no taserings, Spike as William relaxed, uncurling._

 _No, the Initiative's holding tanks never smelled of crayons. Or chalk. Or paint._

 _Cautiously he rolled over on his back, to stare demon-faced up at the painted sky through his rimless glasses with it's blazing crayon sun, even as bright green crayon grass, followed by chalk trees and a drippy painted river and even a crayon rabbit, swirled and formed under and around him._

 _Yes, indeed, the sky was a bright crayon blue._

 _With glued on cotton ball clouds._

 _The creature that was both Spike and William lay there, hands pillowing his head in the waving crayon grass with it's flat yellow and white crayon daisies – if this was a hallucination that the First had sent him and his bitterly detested real self, it was a little bit of all right – like wandering around in the outer layers of Dru's mind when she'd fed well and was in a good mood – minus the cat poop, dead rats, and broken glass._

 _Still, it wouldn't last._

 _Nothing ever did._

 _That was the way of things, innit?_

 _"Might as well enjoy the weird while it lasts." He thought, watching a crayon butterfly, with impossible wings and pipe cleaner legs and antennae flit overhead, followed by what MIGHT have been a very messy fairy with even more impossible wings, even as a bright red and white flea hopped out of his matted hair and into the chalk and crayon grass, which was now populated with a tiny menagerie of crayon ants, bees, spiders, butterflies, macaroni caterpillars, and Play-Doh snails with coiled construction paper shells spattered with glitter and glue._


	34. Interlude with a Flea

_The flea bounced through the Crayola landscape unseen, leaping from point to point, a moving red and white speck among the many colors of green grass against the rough paper of the background, looking for a lever._

 _The search ended at the poet, a small man in rimless glasses and a loose, old-fashioned gray wool suit and soft tie who sat upon the ever expanding lawn like a discarded doll, gaping in childlike open-mouthed wonder around him at the land which scribbled away into the distance around him even as he tried to describe what he saw going on around him with a fountain pen in a worn leather journal._

 _The little man with his unruly soft brown curls and even softer blue eyes was perfect._

 _All the more perfect than the man with white hair, the other side of the coin._

 _Both, one and the same, were creatures of nightmare – and the flea fed upon nightmares._

 _How very utterly, delightfully, tasty_

 _What made it all the tastier was that the flea had browsed through the poet, the man with white hair's head, already – such variety!_

 _And this variety would allow the flea to regain her kingdom, her circus, now that she had the right lever._

 _And the children would once more be hers._

 _And the dancing bear would once again dance to her tune._


	35. A Fox, A Fox, A Cat, and a Bear

_Once upon a time (because all REAL stories begin this way), there was a Fox and a Cat, twin sisters, as it were._

 _And while not exactly Rose Red and Snow White, they had a bear._

 _And while it didn't exactly knock on their door one freezing German winter night, it did knock._

 _And they let it in._

 _(But that was only after they and third who shared their dark Limbo, murdered it…)_

 _…leaving the man that it had once been in pieces on the floor, mumbling and weeping to itself, eyes blind to the sky that was a cheap drop ceiling lit by even cheaper fluorescent lights, in a pool of blood and excrement mingled with the day's confetti and cake crumbs._

 _Laughing, the Fox, the Fox's beloved, and the Cat crammed the blank minded raw clay of what would become the bear's inner self into a space it didn't fit – biting off the bits that wouldn't cooperate, breaking the bones that were too long, cramming the raw blood, meat, and shit of it's existence, it's physical being into a tomb in the shape of an absurd and clumsy bear._

 _Circus Baby, who'd provided them with this lovely new toy, stood and laughed, gorging on his screams, on each dull, wet snap of deliberately broken femurs – and on the final silence when the tomb slammed shut to the release of hundreds of sharp titanium struts, burying him alive to bleed to death in the darkness..._

 _...leaving the Fox and the Cat and the Fox's darling, Funtime Foxy,_ _Hopscotch the Acrobat_ _, and_ _Foxy the Pirate_ _, to cling to each other in the cold and the dark, their rage at the unfairness of it building up for the next time Charlie sent them a new toy to keep them quietly profitable.  
_

 _As for the twins, once upon a time (because there are endless "once upon a times") there were two sisters, born to a tall blonde girl-child who did not know herself, whose mother had been a tall blonde girl-child left naked and alone in a vacant lot by her pimp to die of hypothermia and a heroin overdose._

 _As to their father, it could have been Dakota who had a cool car._

 _He could have been have been Tyler, who always had good weed and had a facial tattoo._

 _It definitely wasn't J'amal – they were blue-eyed blondes._

 _Probably just some guy, whatever: to the mother of the twins, paternity didn't matter: she had babies to love. Babies who depended on her. Babies who got her additional benefits._

 _As she expanded ever larger and larger on her long-suffering couch, with pollinating males forever in a state of flux, the twins grew both in size and independence, which didn't matter; they had many, many siblings to take their place until the County intervened._

 _And took the twins away._

 _The Cat, was cherished by a family who doted on her._

 _The Fox, through a twist of fate, was returned to her mother, who barely noticed, so that the Fox hid from the world in her sketchbook._

 _Separated by fortune and years, the Cat and the Fox endured, one the hopes and dreams of a childless couple, the other an invisible presence on the edge of a maelstrom of drama, dirty diapers, and revolving door boyfriends._

 _Until the Fox was taken in by the founder of Fazcorp…_

 _…to be murdered by the yellow Rabbit, becoming the Fox her drawings inspired so that the Rabbit's son wouldn't be alone, soon joined by her sister, the Cat._

 _The Cat had seen her sister's picture in the newspaper standing off to one side at the unveiling of a new restaurant, "Freddy Fazbear's Pizzaria" – and wanted to see this girl who looked so much like her._

 _The parents who cherished her admitted that she had a twin, a twin she'd nearly forgotten, a twin that they'd tried to adopt along with her but for reasons they wouldn't go into, couldn't._

 _Furious, the Cat ran away to find the missing Fox – only she met a yellow Rabbit along the way so that she awakened AS a Cat not long after, looking up into the face of the grotesque creature she'd been seeking._

 _Only to find that the Fox, as the Mangle, had already made her choice, choosing the son of the wicked Rabbit over her, so that the wrath simmering in the Cat's dead heart overflowed, causing her to lash out at her twin and her beloved in her fury, smashing all in her path to get at her two betrayers, pounding them with steel and titanium fists, rending both with razor blade teeth, crushing in the head of her rival, a yellow-eyed Fox with a hook for a hand, until exhausted in her rage, the sisters reconciled._

 _So together, in the dark, they waited for something to take their anger out on – murdering the toy Charlie sent them, the toy who died regrettably fast as Circus Baby laughed and laughed._

 _However, when he awoke as the Bear; his rage, his skilled violence, made up for the disappointment he'd given them – it was hilarious when Circus Baby made him clumsily dance to her tune in the shadows when the lights went out._

 _And he made a wonderful playmate when Charlie sent them the next new toy._

 _Until one day the Bear woke up and stole Circus Baby's shock box, and after Charlie gave into his demands that she fix the Mangle, like the bear in the fairy tale of two sisters, came in from the cold, he took them along with the one-eyed Fox with him, fleeing deep into Circus Baby's maze – giving them their lives back after the Fox boy burned to ashes._

It was to the Cat and the Fox that the red flea went, whispering in their ears, telling them of the stranger in their midst, and what he had stolen from them.

And Circus Baby stood laughing to one side as a flea as they savaged Spike as William, his blood bright on the green crayon grass.


	36. Cuddle Puddle

_And as for Buffy, she approached a hill where a ballerina sat in the long golden grass with the head of a sleeping toy soldier in her lap, guarding him as he slept, with the growing suspicion that the breezes passing her were more than random puffs of wind._

Though in extremely good shape, the gentle slope Buffy found herself climbing winded her so subtly that that she was breathing hard by the time she reached Raina where she sat with the bear man, the man bear's, head resting on her tulle draped lap. The Slayer paused to wipe sweat out of her eyes and gaped as the creature's large abbreviated hand rose and gently slid down the older woman's flat chest, leaving behind a gentle mound that filled out the gaping bodice before rolling over on his/it's side, turning his/it's back to her.

She shook her head, blinking. No, she didn't just see that.

Raina glanced up at her briefly, and then back down at her lap. For lack of anything better to do, Buffy flopped down on the silky golden grass beside her; it smelled vaguely of gingerbread and glittered.

Breathing hard, she leaned back on her hands, looking up at the Crayola sky with its cotton ball clouds and smiling yellow paper sun before looking down at what had once been Michael J. Schmidt, USMC as he/it shifted, rolling back over on his/its back in his/its sleep and realized why he/it disgusted her: he, no IT, reminded her of Adam.

Insane, disgusting, and pathetic but dangerous Adam, arrogant with stolen power, a bastard son created by a mother who could manipulate the raw stuff of life itself while understanding nothing.

Adam, Dr. Walsh's greatest success and her greatest failure, whose hubris rather than the Slayer and her friends combined as one, eliminated him. They merely had been the killing blow of mercy that the universe harshly demanded in order to keep the balance.

Adam, the obscenity.

Adam the pitiable.

Adam the very, very dead.

And here "he" was again, harmlessly sleeping it off on a woman's lap in Bizzaro world as little footsteps echoed around her to the faint sound of children's laughter in the gingerbread wind.

Lovey dovey kissy kissy aside, if she knew it'd work, she'd stake him right here and now in front of his girlfriend and take the consequences.

Buffy glanced over at Raina, who returned her look while continuing to strokes his/it's close-cropped hair as if he/it were some sort of pet. She raised a finger to her lips, "Shhhhh, you'll wake the baby." And giggled ever so softly.

The Slayer frowned, what had happened to the no-nonsense woman who'd tried to talk her into the military back in the Doublemeat Palace? Anyway, was it her imagination, but did Ms. Dashinsky look somehow younger than she remembered? Her hair was longer, thicker too, and the gray at the temples was gone. "If this is me laying on life-support back in some cancer ward waiting to die," the woman smiled wryly, "Then, maybe death's not so bad after all."

"What?" Buffy rose to her feet, to stare down at the two obvious lovers nestled together in the long silky grass.

"Shhhhh, look!" Raina tossed her head in the direction of two dots on the colored chalk horizon at the feet of one of the gigantic soldiers guarding their strange refuge, "They're back!" Buffy shaded her eyes with one hand. The two dots quickly became the Cat and the Fox, scampered and wove their way through the childish landscape, before dolphining through the long grass and up the hill, where they crouched just out of easy reach and stared warily at the two women with intensely blue eyes.

Buffy froze as the two oddly colored animals circle them suspiciously, noses busy, ears and tails twitching until at some silent signal, they approached the prone Mike, sniffing him aggressively before pacing up and down his body, pausing to bat at each other until wrestling, they fell with laughing cries out of sight from his shoulders, only to pop up and stare at Buffy and Raina before curling up against the prone Bear, who put one massive arm around them both protectively in his sleep in one big cuddle puddle.

Which was when the red and white flea made its move.


	37. POV

_In a little heard of world-class art gallery in the Midwest, amidst the Monets, the Manets, a single de Chirico, and the Egyptian mummy cases, there's a wall-mounted installation. The only genuinely interesting thing about this repetitive piece of "art", which consists of hundreds of white paper pyramids arranged with mathematical precision on a wall facing a plate glass window, is that if you stand on one side of the installation and then slowly, carefully walk your way from left to right with your eyes fixed on the hundreds of white paper pyramids, the white paper pyramids go from white to gray to, shockingly enough, violent orange, transforming the entire experience to something that is still a collection of paper pyramids, but now gone from white to orange, with no hint of the white. They're still paper pyramids, but the simple change of perspective, point of view, of a matter for say, five feet in one direction or the other, gives a different story about something that hasn't changed at all – it's not the installation, that has changed, or even the viewer, but the point of view._


	38. Charlie: The Cost of Doing Business

"I know women who crawl through _shit_ for a fur coat!" _(Barbara Streisand as Claudia Draper in "Nuts")_

* * *

"Damn, not again!" exclaimed Charlie Dunrail, Henry Dunrail's only surviving child. Funtime Freddy was once again laid out on the floor beside her worktable under a cheap plastic tablecloth that was sticky with Chica's Magic Rainbow Punch, flavor #7 (blue). She scanned the incident report casually taped to its forehead – smoking, it had toppled over backwards in the middle of a performance — another burnt-out battery pack.

The third one this month.

Shit. More expenses.

Because they had to power "his" extra-large mass, Freddy's packs had to be custom made. It would be SO much cheaper if she could swap it out with one of the smaller animatronics that her father had built and she'd inherited, gaining sole proprietorship with surprisingly little resistance on the part of Wolfrum and Hart, her father's silent partner, after his extremely messy death last year, but NOOOOOO.

And as for the father she'd worshiped? The man who'd protected her from the scandals and the deaths related to his creations when she was small? The man who'd spent hours teaching her how to build and maintain the foundation of the family business? Was flat out fucking homicidally nuts.

You heard me, Sunshine.

N.U.T.S. Nuts.

Going through his papers after the separation, Charlie quickly discovered that all the injuries and deaths her father's animatronics had caused that Wolfrum and Hart had so casually covered up over the years weren't always Mr. Afton's, dear ol' dad's OTHER business partner's, fault, starting with personnel.

Not long after the "minor" technical problems, which plagued the early days of Fazcorp started, dear old dad personally started hiring nighttime security guards who later disappeared without so much as a letter of resignation.

Charlie wasn't stupid; after noticing this and several other discrepancies in Fazcorp's business records, she followed the blatant paper trail which ended at Fazcorp's back door around the time Fazcorp's animatronics suddenly went from clumsy blundering idiots to uncannily graceful creatures with basic A.I. – only there were no invoices for advanced electronics to go with their increase in performance. As for the missing "employees" who never appeared on Fazcorp's payroll, he'd kept all their applications, like trophies. She'd found them neatly arranged in precise alphabetical order in a big manila envelope casually tucked in among the invoices for titanium struts and fun fur in assorted tacky colors.

The entire chain had one of the best electronic security systems in the region – her dad had designed and installed it himself. Why the hell would Fazcorp need night guards to watch the place after hours with such a blue ribbon system in place?

And why were so many of them rootless individuals with little or no background in security? She'd shuffled through the applications stamped "hired": homeless, the hard to employ, recovering addicts who'd burned all their bridges, students looking to pick up a few bucks on the side, even a few that might have been runaways lying about heir ages – every last one of them a loser nobody would miss.

Speaking of losers, she even remembered some of them from when she was little girl. There was been a messy, smelly little man, what was his name? Jeremy Fitzgerald? She dimly recalled him as an unkempt mass of dark hair with a flat voice that sounded like "Shaggy" from "Scooby Doo" that was always eating. She remembered his sharing a bag of Cheetos with her just before he clocked in the first and last time she ever saw him. Then there was the big scary blonde dude who'd towered over her, reeking of beer, belly overlapping his belt, blue eyes bloodshot, the cheap rent-a-cop uniform straining at his shoulders – that had been Mike.

Swaying, he'd stared down at her red-faced and sweating before lumbering past her into the security office that night – her father quickly pulled her away and back into the car and on the way home before sundown that night.

She'd never seen "Mike" again.

Which suited Charile just fine. The big man's expressionless blue eyes had been… terrifying.

Only she saw the same "look" a few days later when her father stopped in at _Circus Baby's_ to make a quick repair. The big pink and white teddy bear in a shabby tuxedo that opened the door for them on their way out had the same eyes. So what if they were two expressionless painted plastic orbs?

Plus, it smelled.

Bad. Like the dead cat that had baked on the street for two days in front of Charlie's house earlier that summer until the street cleaner had sucked it up.

Without warning, Funtime Freddy locked eyes with her before with a gap-toothed razor-blade grin, it suddenly bowed and with a flourish of it's snapped off broomstick cane that she didn't remember it having before, removed it's hat, and rolled it from one paw to the other over it's shoulder, locking eyes with her as it deliberately bounced the battered hat off of one heel, catching it midair one-handed before placing it back on it's head with a flourish and a second bow before opening the door for them with an eerily delicate motion of one massive, stubby paw.

Astonished at this unexpected display of grace - Funtime Freddy had always been a big clumsy doofus even for an animatronic - Charlie had gaped up at her father. The expression on his face caused Charlie to have a meltdown on the spot; a meltdown so violent that he snatched her up and fled the building, the thing's voice, a juddering patchwork of conflicting songs and voices: "Have a nice day!" which only made her scream louder and piss herself, soaking both of them before he could load her into the car.

Anyway, the more Charlie learned after taking over Fazcorp, the more deeply she found herself woven into the evil. So deeply that now, as she knelt and released the hidden catch on Freddy's chest, causing it to pop open and reveal what it held with a fetid puff of air, that the faded odor of dead rat under the floorboards that most of the animatronics gave off no longer bothered her. She could always hold her nose as long as tossing some random loser in a cheap uniform under the bus in one location or another every so many weeks kept things quiet after closing time and the bucks rolling in. So what if once or twice a month a still-warm black garbage bag found it's way into the dumpster out back and the place stank of Clorox?

Though lately, requests for new toys were… down. Oh well, less paperwork!

Mr. Dunreil's daughter unscrewed the leads after a blast of canned air cleared off the bone chips and worse that filled the body cavity of the bear. She pushed aside a pair of large dusty boots and a shabby leather wallet, barely glancing at the space on Funtime Freddy's motherboard where a chip should have been.

She'd noticed the discrepancy the first time she'd had to change the big lunk's battery after bringing it out of long-term storage. Despite missing a major control chip, the thing operated smoothly enough to be worth keeping active: so far not one booger eater in a party hat got it's toes stepped on and it didn't walk through random walls, so she'd dismissed the gap then as now, more intent on getting fatass up off the floor and back greeting the evening's onslaught of the overindulged spawn of the bourgeoisie and their 8th place trophies.

Oh, and speaking of shit dear ol' dad failed to mention under the heading of "things that aren't listed in inventory", how about that nasty little piece of work, Circus Baby?

When it approached Charlie the first time, she'd been sitting at her father's desk at the back of the restaurant a month after his death, irritably searching through his handwritten repair logs for individual animatronics for the namesake of _Circus Baby's_ because it was missing from the inventory Wolfrum and Hart had given her as part of the settlement.

Suddenly the missing mascot hopped up on the desk, demanding that she hire another security guard or the deal her father made with it was o.f.f. _off!_

Startled, Charlie scooted backwards in the battered office chair, nearly tipping over backwards onto the floor. Catching herself on the edge of the desk, all she could say was, "Where the Hell have you been since dad died?"

Circus Baby crouched down so that it was nose to nose with Charlie. That was when she noticed it breathe and it's teeth looked like it could effortlessly punch holes in sheet metal.

And oh yeah, it's costume wasn't stiff molded plastic like she'd always thought, but a leathery carapace that from a distance looked like a painted on red tutu. and that those weren't cute li'l pigtails decorating the sides of its head.

Charlie stifled a scream as it leapt onto her, slamming her backwards into the office chair, which hit the floor behind her with a rattling thud that echoed in the empty building. Placing both stubby hands on either side of Charlie's head it leaned down, smeary red mouth gaping slightly, nostrils twitching as it sniffed her up and down before with a grin, it started bouncing on her chest, making it almost impossible to breathe, "Yes," it chortled in between impacts, "You'll do, you'll do!" The long red curving horns framing its face grazed Charlie's, dangerously close to her eyes. "Do as I say, look the other way. Reap the rewards – in your father's footsteps – ohhhhhh, yessssss, you'll do – or ELSE!"

Lungs straining, Charlie tried not to struggle. Struggling only made Circus Baby heavier. Instead, she nodded, giving out a gasping squeak that she hoped sounded like assent.

"Goood, gooooooood…" it cooed, adding, "Ice cream?"

Ears ringing, Charlie nodded, vision going dark. She felt the thing that was Circus Baby's hand with it's nozzle laden fingertips slide into her mouth, followed by the surge of something soft and cold filling it, her assailant's tinkling laughter like endlessly breaking glass.

Gagging and gasping, Charlie sat up alone a few seconds later, spitting out the diarrhea that overflowed her mouth and dribbled wetly down her chin. She fell face forward out of the chair, landing on her knees and vomiting until all that came up was green bile.

Sick sense of humor aside, Circus Baby held up her end of the bargain. Anyway, business was business; sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

The second time Circus Baby came out of the shadows from wherever it lurked, Charlie was slightly more prepared.

Prepping a little boy in a propeller beanie that blew up balloons when you put a quarter in his mouth that she'd picked up on the cheap at a business liquidation auction, the thing tugged on her apron at knee level.

Prepared or not, she still jumped, looking down into it's seamed, half-decayed clown's face. It yanked her down to ear level. Firmly covering her mouth just in case, Charlie learned that Baby needed something.

Something useful.

Something easily cobbled together using cheap tasers from a nearby electronics store.

And collars. Don't forget the collars.

All she had to do was wire the collars with the guts from the tasers, which could be tweaked to bring out more voltage while tapping into the wearer's battery pack, and then make a master control with a simple adjustable push-button switch.

No problem – Charlie could do it in her sleep.

As to exactly WHY Circus Baby needed such hardware, Charlie decided that as long as productivity was maintained and whatever it was that tore up the "night guards" she was hiring roughly two or more a month cleaned up after itself, who cared what the little freak wanted her to do?

Speaking of night guards, tomorrow morning she might actually have to PAY the latest one over at _Freddy's_ – he'd somehow lasted four full nights!

Damn.

She'd have to see what happened tonight in the hopes that her "silent partner" would get off it's ass and do what it did best so she wouldn't have to empty petty cash tomorrow morning by writing a check. Even at minimum wage, retaining "long-term employees" wasn't cheap.

With this in mind she finished the collars and gave them to Circus Baby before waking up gasping just before sunrise, chest aching in the middle of her workroom floor at _Circus Baby's_ , panties full of spiders and maggots writhing in her bra with Circus Baby nowhere in sight.

Two hours later, Charlie found the usual double strength Hefty bag against the inside of _Freddy's_ back door, tied shut and still warm. Obviously petty cash was now longer in any danger of a raid.

That, and Freddy and the gang all sported collars where they lay in their cradles plugged in for a nice day's invigorating recharge. Still, Freddy's neck looked a bit scorched where it's new collar (complete with little red bow tie) encircled its neck, but hey, business is business and a little 409 took the soot right off followed by a quick spritz of pink and white Krylon.

The following week, she saw Circus Baby once more while getting ready to retire the nightmare figure of "The Mangle" by running it through the scooper in the scooping room followed by a trip to the recyclers while pushing the grotesque walking scrap heap down the hall on a hand truck. Things had been quiet since she'd issued those shock collars: the general destruction in the night wasn't as bad, and the main performers had been unusually functional during the day – plus there had been no requests for night guards, which meant less paperwork—woo-hoo!

Not only that, but profits were up, and the little Siamese cat acrobat she'd retrofitted with a new gyroscopic internal stabilizer was working out beautifully. Thinking reasonably good thoughts she'd pushed the Mangle down the back hall and through the double doors leading to the scooping room behind the back loading dock. Clutching at where an arm should have been, Circus Baby suddenly scuttled across her path. Charlie stopped dead in her tracks as the nasty thing paused in the dim light of the service corridor, and hissing, bared it's irregular teeth at her before scuttling back into the shadows.

Once Charlie's heart settled, she'd continued her way to the grinder, grateful that this encounter hadn't ended with various bodily orifices and/or undergarments overflowing with unsolicited vermin – though that might change later. Circus Baby was whimsical that way.

You know, seeing as the price of several high tech metals had gone up – the Mangle might not be the only animatronic to be "retired" tonight.

Like, how about Bellora the Ballerina? As well as being a failure on the part of Charlie, the thing was extremely limited and took up space., Better yet, how about axing the big, dumb bear that once scared the crap out of her as a little girl? Once she removed the illegal inner portion from both great big high-maintenance/low profit pains in the butt and tossed it into the dumpster out back, she could break twinkle toes and fatso's electronics and exoskeletons down, salvage their battery packs, and shove their nearly 300 pound bulks piece by piece into the rotary jaws of the scooper, maybe get a hundred or so if the price of gold went up again.

Yeah, Funtime Freddy would be next and then Bellora: the insurance settlement from the failed venture where under Wolfrum and Hart's management Fazcorp set up a satellite ¼ size party house in some podunk town, Sunnyvale, or Sunnywood or whatever, (See, "Nightshift".) was running out fast. Charlie needed to make some major upgrades: what with video games and shit, even the little kids weren't impressed by a giant walking toy, so profits were down. Time to branch out into virtual reality or something like that.

Charlie flipped on the lights in the scooping room and set the scooper to "grind", only to abruptly learn that a new player had entered the game when a man-shaped outline pulled itself out of thin air right in front of her with a sharp report just as she started to feed the Mangle feet first into the twin rotary blades of the scooper. In a slow-motion swish, the world re-shaped itself around her so that gasping, Charlie found herself looking down at a face that could be loosely described as an extremely pissed off angel's.

Only angels didn't look bent on murder – unless you counted the angels in those lame-ass brochures some local holy roller handed you whenever you walked past a gay bar or an abortion clinic – _those_ were choc-a-block STUFFED with pissed off angels, ready to slap down some instant righteous justice on the unrighteous.

That, and this one was wearing a pink and white tuxedo while waving what looked like a policeman's baton instead of the cane you'd think would go with a tuxedo. No, scratch that, it was wearing combat fatigues, a buzzcut, and a "USMC" t-shirt with the sleeves torn off; exposing arms that looked like a whole fleet of VW Beetles all trying to get into the same parking space at once.

Or did he?

It?

Because as much as looking directly at the flowing, shifting thing roughly gripping her one-handedly up against the ceiling made Charlie's eyes hurt, it was decidedly a man waving a policeman's baton threateningly in her face.

Or was it a homicidal teddy bear?

A pissed off angel with a broken nose?

And was that really a policeman's baton or something worse, with maybe _fingers_ on one end?

Whatever it was, his/it's ears were bright red, adding to the overall aura of pissed-offedness. Charlie screamed as it's face rippled, one second Funtime Freddy, the next something made of glittering titanium struts dripping blood, or was it a man wearing a goofy cartoon bear mask with eyes that oozed black tears? A pissed off angel? Or was it a man who'd had his lips torn off so that his teeth were exposed all along his flayed jaw up to his ears— only those weren't teeth that glittered in the cheap overhead fluorescent lights, but razor blades jutting aggressively from his exposed gums.

And then it stabilized into the big, sweaty overweight guard she remembered seeing as a little girl, only this time he wasn't fat and he wasn't drunk. Charlie screamed when he released his grip on her, allowing her to fall before he caught her one handedly by the back of her coverall just before she landed face-down on the scarred black and white tiled floor of the scooping room. Flipping Charlie midair like a rifle, her attacker caught her by the front of her coverall, shaking her until her teeth rattled and her dull mousy bobbed hair fell over her eyes, blinding her as baton slid into the back of his belt, he cradled the Mangle like a child against him as he raved silently at her, the sound of static and snatches of song he gave off slamming into her like fists as the very air around her went thick and dark.

In a black slow-motion swirl he/it dropped Charlie to the floor, standing over her, still cradling the Mangle as he leaned over her, baton out, the cords in his neck standing out like cables, static almost deafening, black-steel teeth glittering, blue eyes no longer flat and dull – he stank of old death and electricity, blood dripping off of him.

No, not blood, green ichor.

Charlie frantically scooted backwards on her butt towards the double swinging doors to the outside hall. Her attacker caught her again, easily picking her up before shoving her against the wall, leaning in, mouth working in silent fury. Unable to control herself, Charlie pissed herself, urine dripping off the toes of her sneakers as he lowered her into the stinking puddle she'd just made.

Despite of her situation, Charlie looked down at what she was standing in and made a tiny noise of disgust.

Her assailant's eyes followed hers; then he threw his head back and began laughing in a jagged electronic screech. Humiliated and terrified as she was, Charlie noticed that there was a raw, oozing stump where his/it's tongue should have been. Thinking the beast distracted, she tried slipping away the second she felt him relax his grip so that she almost made it to the door and perhaps safety.

He/it grabbed her by the collar, dragging her behind him like a rag doll through the double doors and back into her workroom, easily tossing her onto the gleaming metal surface of her worktable before gently laying the Mangle beside her. He bent over Charlie as she woozily sat up, one huge, disproportionately short hand on either side of her, mouth working as if he was trying to say something, only to slam both fists into the table, denting it badly in a hissing roar of static before pausing, head down, reddening even further as with one hand he gripped her arm, the other hovering over the gleaming surface of the worktable.

For a few seconds his/its appearance shuddered, so that it was a seriously pissed off angel with electric blue eyes that scrawled "Fix her." with one stubby finger in large block letters gouged deep into the metal. He/it met Charlie's eyes before adding, "Or else." before exploding into a tornado of rage and blue sparks, overturning trays of tools, sending technical manuals and papers flying. Screaming, Charlie fled beneath the bench until it slowly settled into a sullenly rotating mass of images, energy and dark beside the table, slightly taller than a man.

Hoping that if she did as he/it asked it would go away and leave her alone, Charlie nervously crawled out and started working on the Mangle in the syrupy air pressing in on her. She reached for a worn-out control chip – why waste the good stuff on something that was still slated for scooping the second the pissed off angel wasn't looking? The Mangle was, after all, hers to do with as she pleased, and salvage was what Charlie pleased.

Piece by piece, the bear, angel, pocket-sized electrical storm reassembled itself into more or less a man wearing a battered Funtime Freddy Mask and the ragged remains of a night guard's uniform. That was when Bon Bon, the hand puppet that started out as a prank by one of the kitchen staff, climbed out of his/it's shirt pocket and inched it's way towards his/it's right hand.

Charlie paused within the unreality of it all and stared at the self-propelled puppet arranging itself over the large blunt nailless hand-paw. It's mouth worked a few times before it said in a raspy tenor southern fried voice, "I wouldn't do that if I were y'all."

"Do what?"

"Use broken parts to fix what's broken – pull that shit again and I'll rip y'all's fuckin' head off and shit down y'all's fuckin' windpipe." It added, pop-eyes rotating like a frog's. "Even I know the difference 'tween shit and what's not."

Charlie dropped the substandard chip and quickly reached for a good one before sliding it into the motherboard, eyes unsuccessfully trying to focus on the writhing mass of solid and shadow writhing and spinning around her.

"Pull that a second time and y'all won't know what hit you." The voice was calm, but Charlie could feel the violence running through it as it directed her through what it wanted her to do so that within two hours, the Mangle was missing it's second head and was sitting up with two legs instead of three damaged ones dangling over the edge of the work table as she used rubbing alcohol to buff off the dried sap from it's unscheduled journey through a South American jungle (see, "Nightshift"). After consulting her father's old blueprints and replacing the water-damaged battery, she slid the original fursuit she'd found hanging dusty in a locker back over it's now gleaming endoskeleton.

The suit was nasty, but the google-eyed horror directing her didn't seem to care as Hopscotch the acrobatic little Siamese cat she'd been working on earlier scampered out from behind the massive puppeteer and his swirling cloud of… of...

…nightmare.

Charlie jumped, knocking the alcohol soaked shop rag off the edge of the worktable. Hopscotch looked her directly in the eye, stooped, picked up the rag and handed it to her, "Don't be like your dad. Do the right thing." It said in a high, light girl's voice, adding. "Give her what you gave me right now, or _else."_

"What the hell are you doing here?" Bon Bon snapped. Charlie felt every hair on her body stand up. Blue sparks sizzled off of everything in the room, which swam in and out of focus around her.

"She's MY twin, not yours!"

The pissed off angel surfaced in the turmoil, storming down upon the smaller being, waving the baton behind him at the darkness that flared out from behind him like a ragged cloak, snarling. "Puck, I told y'all to stay in the Maze until it's safe!"

"That could be forever and she's my SISTER!" the little cat screamed back, her voice Dopplered past Charlie who was now on her knees, gripping one of the steel legs of her worktable to avoid being sucked into the growing void that filled the center of the room.

"Son of a bi…, y'all don't listen… I'm the adult here - what I say goes and that's an order!"

"Bite me!" the little anthropomoriphic cat screamed, followed by, "Oh shit. She's found us!" in a very, very small voice as suddenly the floor beneath her paws….

…rippled?

The two entities froze.

The floor rippled again.

The little cat's blue eyes flared and dimmed as it reached up at the angel with both hands like a toddler, "Don't let her take us? Please? We don't want to go back."

The underfoot checkerboard tilted sideways even as it stayed in place. Charlie felt herself being pulled away from the anchoring table leg. Tools slid past her with a clatter, followed by the Shaggy Dog, who was also slated for scooping, blank sad eyes staring up at the churning non-existent ceiling as legs stiff in the air it slid on it's sticky, matted back towards the growing oblivion.

The angel reached down and grabbed the cat, putting it on one broad shoulder. The worktable bounced in place, Charlie looked up at the tabletop above her and gaped. The Mangle, which had been stolidly seated on the worktable despite the chaos, slipped down onto the unstable black and white squares the indoor wind making it's fur stand on end. Eyes glowing and arms spread wide, it tottered towards the huddled center of the dark vortex swallowing Charlie's workshop.

The Mangle fell forward as with a roar, Circus Baby's smeary red mouth erupted beneath them in a cresting black and white tidal wave, "Fall back! Fall back!" the angel bellowed, gathering the battered pink and white fox in one arm as he spun, a hint of broad wings trailing behind him in the air, "If you want to come with us, do it NOW!" In full battle dress the creature leapt over the carcass of the Shaggy Dog and dodged Bellora the Ballerina as placidly demure, it approached them _en pointe_ , eyes downcast, hard plastic arms rising gracefully as the rest of Baby's face pulled itself free from the floor, jagged teeth gnashing, every piece of paper in the room whirling around them all like a cloud of terrified doves.

As Charlie held on for dear life, she saw to her horror the angel's stubby paw reach out and snag her family's betrayal of dozen's of disposable losers out of midair as the clipped shut folder flew past in slow motion.

And with the sound of a ringmaster's whip, he folded reality around him and his burden.

And disappeared.

 _With a gasp, Charlie woke up on the floor beside her own bed in a tangle of sweat-soaked sheets, the alarm blaring._

 _She reached up to the bedside table and squinting, pulled the clock towards her so that she could read the tall red numbers on it's plastic face._

 _3:00 p.m._

 _Chest aching with every breath she took, Charlie dressed and then made coffee in the kitchen downstairs. When the phone rang around 3:30, she answered it dully between sips. The voice on the other end of the receiver wanted to know if she knew somebody'd dumped bricks into the scooper, putting it out of commission, and that Bellora the Ballerina had been found in the scooping room repeatedly banging face first into the wall behind the scooper when it was supposed to have been decommissioned and junked last night along with the Shaggy Dog._

 _That, and the workroom looked like somebody had released a bull in there when nobody was looking. An angry bull._

 _Oh, and the latest night guard just quit without bothering to even so much as leave behind a "Fuck you!" note on his time card._

 _Anyway, it was a big mess at Circus Baby's, and they really needed her there to assess the damage and file an insurance claim if one was needed._

 _All right. All right. She'd be in in half an hour to see what could be done._

 _She'd fix the scooper._

 _Then she'd dump Bellora into the damned thing, still on. Not for the valuable metals inside it, but for the sheer pleasure of watching something that had disappointed her be destroyed at her own whim if she couldn't dispose of the others._

 _Only when she got there, Bellora, the Shaggy Dog, the freshly repaired Mangle, Hopscotch the Siamese Acrocat, and Funtime Freddy, lay quietly in their cradles, plugged in for a deep recharge as if nothing had happened._

 _So Charlie left them alone._

 _For now._


	39. Somebody Else's Problem

_As for the red and white flea, the flea did what the flea did best._

 _Whispering in their dreams, it reminded the fox and the cat of old grievances, adding a pinch of sorrow here, and a pinch of bitterness there with a quick dash of rage for spice, stirring them up, whispering in pointed ears as they dozed in the comforting spaces of the bear, of disappointments, of injustices real or imagined._

 _Having brought them to the boil, the flea, glutton that it was, sat back, green eyes glittering in greedy anticipation._

"Jeepers!" Buffy exclaimed as Hopscotch and Funtime Foxy suddenly stood, tails puffed, ears flattened, and raced off towards the Crayola horizon in a scampering thunder of paws across the paper ground, "What was that all about?"

Raina looked up, eyes sleepy, fingers twined in the silky golden grass that waved around them in the gingerbread wind, "Don't know. Don't care." She looked down at the bear whose massive aureate head rested heavily in her lap, shrugging, "Not my problem."


	40. At a loss for words

William scribbled frantically trying to record the dream unfolding around him, because that's what it had to be, a dream. Otherwise, what he saw shouldn't be happening.

And if it was, he was mad, which would never do. Madness, unless it was the divine madness of Byron, Shelly or Keats, was completely unacceptable.

Therefore, this was indeed, a dream.

And if he could record the dream, he would outdo that Lewis Carroll fellow with his absurd backwards speaking knights and appalling babies that turned into swine and finally gain the literary recognition he craved so very badly – to Satan with poetry!

Poetry got him laughed at.

Poetry blocked his mouth.

Poetry dribbled from his pen, sounding marvelous in his head only to lie there like a (oh dear) steaming pile of horse manure in the street only not as useful, on the pages of his commonplace book.

But this? This? Merciful heavens but this was hot stuff!

No, no, "hot stuff" was vulgar, un-poetic, beneath him. Such a marvelous dream deserved something, something….

…exquisite? No.

Fantastical? No

Effulgent? Gracious, _no!_

It was…

It was…

...was…? William looked up from his scribbling to notice that he was being stared at by a marvelously strange little cat the color of fresh golden cream with dark paws, ears, and tail, staring at him with a sapphire gaze from a dark mask like a pansy's, sitting beside an equally enchanting fox in a decidedly unnatural shade of clove pink with eyes of topaz. "Oh, I say, hello there pretty creatures!" he said happily. This dream was unfolding splendidly! "Do hold still so that I may see you, will you not?"

Thoroughly delighted with this fresh novelty, William hastily tried describing them with ink. Only, in his search for the right words to record what now stood before him, it initially didn't register when snarling, they rose up on their back legs, rising higher and higher, metal glinting between matted, blood-stained fur, lips peeled back, mouths opening and closing with the sound of clashing knives, revealing rusty, jagged teeth.

Oh the word!

Oh the word!

Word! Word! Word!

Why wouldn't the word come to him? The right word, the bright word, the word that would sum it all up and glow in the darkness explaining everything?

"Oh dear!" With metallic snarls, what had been a fox and a cat fell upon William, scattering him, his spectacles, his commonplace book, and his fountain pen in all directions.

Their jaws closed on him and suddenly, the little man that was William, with his child-like eyes and habitual slightly hurt expression finally found the word he was looking for: excruciating.

And indeed, it was.


	41. Dream of a Ghost of a Ghost in a Dream

Buffy, feeling sleepy herself, dismissed the two animal's hasty exit and with her arms around her knees, tipped back to watch the cotton ball clouds (and yes, they were really cotton balls, you could even see the little drips of glue that held them in place as they glided overhead) drift past in the drowsy eternal summer afternoon she found her in.

Jeremy, now more Shaggy Dog than man, or whatever he was, trotted up, circled three times, and attempted to put his head in her lap as he lay down beside her a little too close. Buffy absently pushed him away and the bear who pillowed his head on Raina's lap opened one blue eye and stared at her, a single black tear rolling down the short, burnished fur that surrounded it.

Without thinking, Buffy met the glance, only to fall into it as if into the moon's reflection in a bottomles blue well. She shook her head and looked down at her shoulder as a large hand gripped it with surprising gentleness.

No, it was a small hand, a child's. Buffy scooched around, frowning. "Hey!"

A blonde little boy barefoot in a red turtleneck sweater and worn brown corduroy trousers sat on the golden grass clutching a Winnie the Pooh behind her.

No, it was a man in a blue and white striped shirt.

No, a youth, with lank blonde hair tied back wearing a football team jacket with the left sleeve torn off, acne spattering his face. Or was it a man in fatigues with silver traceries along his face and a ragged scar on the inside of his left wrist just below a black jagged tattoo line that circled both forearms?

Whatever, whoever it was, ducked his head, giving her a brief shy closed smile before saying, "Do you like this place?"

"Well, ummm, yeah?"

"I, he, built it. For them." Rising to his feet, he straightened, arms spread wide, encompassing the entire world, toy soldiers that weren't toys, crayon trees and cotton ball clouds, the dimpling of hundreds of little footprints in the Crayola grass, and all as the Shaggy Dog got up and ambled away to sniff at something.

"I'm sorry, who?"

"Can't you see them? You're one of them. I smell it on you." The boy, now a man with cropped hair cocked his head at her, his soft, flat drawl crackled from a grille in his chest as if from far away. Buffy stood and backed away. He put a large hand, the one with the scarred wrist out and gently held her in place, ink stark against his pale skin, "The quiet place, the place where nothing matters and you are loved in spite of yourself. I remember it." A single black tear rolled greasily down his face, tracing the silver lines, which Buffy realized weren't random tattoos but circuitry. "Don't you?"

Buffy shuddered; Adam's face had been like that up close.

The tear hit the ground between them and slowly bounced, sizzling with the scent of hot tar. Head slightly cocked, he watched it boil away between them before locking eyes with Buffy "Well, don't you?"

She leaned away. He released her with an expectant look.

"Ummmm, look, Mike, Michael, whoever you are, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Yes." The creature, now a young man on the edge of needing to shave towered over her with slightly swirling blue eyes, nodded, "Don't lie; it doesn't work. Had I known how peaceful it was, I wouldn't have let the pain…" He held up his left wrist, and then his right, which had a smaller, barely noticeable scar as well, "…and the blood, stop me, who was never supposed to be born." He gestured with both hands again as if displaying stigmata in a religious painting, "As are most of these, the ones I, we, gathered up, the ones who called me, him, without knowing it, as did you."

And then Buffy saw them, the children whose footsteps dimpled the grass, sending up puffs of chalk dust as they ran laughing through a world someone else had built for them, shaping it to their needs. Giggling, a barefoot little girl in a pinafore and bunny slippers ran past clutching a stuffed blue rabbit. Buffy reached out to touch her, her fingertips brushing against starched cotton and lace, "Oh, she, she's real!"

"I think it's a wish you just touched – not mine, hers. They call him, us. He, I, collect them. We let them play, here." Once again a teenager, Mike watched them, one hand unconsciously brushing back an unruly lock of golden hair out of his eyes. The little girl… blinked out, like a flashbulb, leaving behind a single pinprick of light that left floaters in Buffy's eyes, "It happens. I, we, don't know where they go, but we, I, don't feel them any more – and he, I, have never had a baby call to him, us from the lonely places." Once again a large man with a face like a Calvin Klein underwear model's laughed, so much static from an old Victrola, "I think they're too unformed to realize they were once alive so they… dissipate?"

Buffy looked out across where the golden grass turned to green. Occasional pinpricks of light glittered through the construction paper trees and along the bean and macaroni paths in among the children who intently scribbled or played there – content in what memories pleased them.

"Anyway, I, it, he," black, oily tears slowly trailing down his face, the child then man stepped vaguely towards Raina, who was now leaning asleep against the bear, "lived. They told me, him, it was an accident, somebody left a water glass in the juvvie dorm where I, he, was incarcerated after I, he, slashed somebody's tires and got caught, and that we'd knocked it over in the night and cut ourselves trying to clean it up. We were fourteen - they were wrong… or so we recall." He shrugged, once again looking down at his big hands before glancing back up at her, small pink bear ears now sticking out of his glitter-dusted buzzcut, voice deepening "We drifted through life, keeping ourself to ourself – when you're too big for your skin, they say "Act your age!" Only they mean, "act your size" – and then they argue over who has to take responsibility for you in right in front of you because why guard your tongue when there's a dummy around?"

Staring open-mouthed up at the ears, Buffy shook her head, "No, you've got it all wrong! When you're smaller than you should be, they think you're a baby when you aren't, and they say whatever, thinking you don't understand."

The two of them met eyes and they both laughed.

A little.

Another flash, Buffy turned to watch the tiny pinpoint drift upwards and then wink out, "Raina saved my life the second time." He gestured at the blue and white striped chambray shirt, "She also gave this to me. For our birthday. I, he, never got many gifts."

Trying not to make a face, the shirt was sooooo 90s! Buffy gestured at the sleeping woman and the golden bear, "Her?"

"There was no point in me going on. I was planning to end it all at the end of my shift; even had a sidearm under the mattress in my billet. She tail-ended a pickup truck right in front of me with her motorcycle when I was directing morning traffic on Base – so I gave her a ticket. Later that day she and I had a fight with a squirrel… I think. Our memory is full of holes. She invited herself to my table at lunch, made a pass at me, and then asked me to come play football." Mike now in fatigues, ran his short, stubby nail-less hands over his face, before shaking his head, laughing, lips still tight shut, "She took me down the first two minutes of playing. And I returned the gun to the pawn shop and got my money back. After that, I lose track… I think. It's confusing - we don't like to remember."

"But you're, you're…" Buffy stammered.

"Rational?" The face turned to her was that of a man, a bit worse for wear, older, the glittering traceries just under his skin skin shifting, mingling with lines of pain, "Extremely verbally fluent?" He gave a slight sneer, "Just because we are big, white, and have an accent, doesn't mean we are stupid, right?"

"Oooooh… sorry, that was mean of me, but I don't get it, he," she gestured at the nearby bear, "He doesn't make any…"

"I'm his tongue, his… I'm the missing piece, the part that holds it all together… that makes sense"

"What?" Buffy's eyes bulged in shock.

"When the cat and the fox killed…"

"Who?"

"Things are very wrong here, when they ki-"

"Those two cuddlebugs that just shot off into the sunset _killed_ him? And he snuggle… this place is insane!" Buffy turned abruptly tossing her hair, reaching for the stake she kept in the back of her waistband.

Mike, or a little bit of Mike intercepted her move, taking the stake away from her with a practiced move. "Will you just shut up and listen?" He glared down at her, ears bright red, static more pronounced, "Just listen, will you?"

The two of them tussled, with Buffy finally giving him a roundhouse kick in the knee.

Only instead of collapsing in on himself with a shattered kneecap, Mike, lips peeled back, stood grinning down at her with sharp, steel teeth, the stake held high overhead.

Buffy sat down hard, arms back around her knees, and began rocking. It was Adam all over again only this time there were no magic gourds, no best friends, no mystical doves released, no visits from The First… no no no no! She looked up, Mike was crouched before her, heavy boots digging into the chalk-dust soil, face the clearest it had ever been.

Reaching towards her with one of his abbreviated hands, the fingertips raw and oozing, he whispered, "You've been in the lonely places, I smell them on you. You know what they're like –when you are in the lonely places, you do cruel, stupid things because all that anger has to go somewhere – and because they were in the lonely places, they took him, me apart, piece by piece, starting with his, my, tongue, and left me, him, in the dark to die alone and unheard." Mike brushed back Buffy's hair, pulling her onto his lap so that she leaned against his chest only instead of a heartbeat, all she could hear was the long, distant hum of electricity traveling through wires as he rocked her, "And because nobody wants to be alone, he, I, WE, took them into ourselves after we rose – that was Raina's real gift."

"Raina's _gift?"_ Buffy stared as a black tear sizzled past. Thoughtfully she poked it, sending the wobbly little black orb towards the tempera paint sea. "Cuddling two murders? Why not a pair of pants to go with that shir… Anyway… and you are?"

"Mike's ghost."

"Don't be stupid, there's no such thing as a ghost haunting a gho… Hey, what's happening?" Buffy pulled away, eyes wide, ears straining. Was that a scream?

"Oh shit, they're at it again!" Reaching for the baton in the back of his belt, Mike stood up, sending the Slayer heavily to the ground. As Buffy tried to stand, there was a roar and a golden blur filled her face, knocking her flat even as another high pitched scream echoed around her. Disoriented, Buffy stood, shaking the sleep out of her eyes. Mike the ghost was gone, but Mike the bear was making like an express train towards the source of the screams, with the Shaggy Dog and Raina, no longer a dress-up ballerina but a woman in jeans and t-shirt hot on his heels.


	42. Choo Choos and Tutus

Dreaming of Big Sur in the moonlight, of the little waterfall that tumbled into the sea, Raina abruptly found herself running through tall grass while wearing a blue, purple, and yellow tutu.

Or attempting to – there was something wrong with her hips as well as her feet, which were frozen _en pointe_ so that her run was more of an involuntary drag.

Worse, she was also trying to keep up with a Polar bear.

Yes, a Polar bear.

Only instead of the usual white like in all the nature specials on t.v., this one, in a bizarre mingling of pink, white, and gold rocketed ponderously forward on huge cotton candy colored paws, sending screaming children in all directions like startled quail.

"This is stupid, what the hell am I doing in a tutu?" Raina yelled, "I got kicked out of ballet because I called the teacher a fart-breathed moron after I climbed on the barre and broke it when I was six!" Then Raina realized she'd been mistaken: she was pelting along in a t-shirt and jeans, feet in her favorite worn-out sneakers, one hand resting on the creature's massive pink and gold shoulders as it charged along like an old-fashioned steam locomotive in one of the old John Wayne movies her dad loved.

Which was even dumber – what the hell did a John Wayne style choo-choo have to do with anything— especially if there was a bear in a hurry involved?

Raina stumbled over a hobby-horse, and then a hula hoop, hands tangling in the thick fur carpeting the sunset-colored bear's massive shoulders. With a clumsy, running heave, she vaulted onto the bear's lurching back mid-stride, landing hard, the muscles of it's body rippling and shifting between her knees, rushing through a landscape that was one second a child's idea of Paradise and the next a cold gray maze stretching into infinity beneath a flat gray sky and back again, all of it lifting and dropping like the deck of an aircraft carrier caught in a violent storm.

Whap! Whap! Whap! What the bear's broad back was doing to her backside reminded Raina of the last day of ballet class ever. Her father, who'd been sitting bored out of his mind in his uniform among the ballet mommies while her six older brothers argued over the one Gameboy they collectively owned, overheard her blunt critique of Mrs. Touche's chronic halitosis. That plus the property damage had been the final straw. He'd grabbed Raina by the ear and once in the parking lot, used her backside as a bongo.

Repeatedly.

Then he'd driven all of them back home, sending Raina and her six brothers to their rooms, while he spent the rest of the evening cleaning the garage.

Which didn't need cleaning.

By himself.

Anyway, she'd liked Pop Warner Football as a Tiny Mite a whole helluva lot better – plus her dad got a group discount because of her older brothers.

So what if she'd been the only girl in the entire league?

Whap! Whap! Whap! Raina found herself tipping sideways even as she went up and down, butt screaming in outrage as her heels flew up and down in time to her unconventional steed's ground eating strides with the Shaggy Dog coming in second place. Maybe allowing herself to be dragged wouldn't have been so bad after all…

Then the bear stopped so abruptly that Raina found herself flying ass over teakettle before landing with a yelp in a candy corn bush that smelled of lemon furniture polish… and spaghetti?

"Oh heavens, are you all right?" a small neon yellow cartoonish-looking bear Raina had never noticed before waddled over and anxiously helped her to her feet, "Mike didn't hurt you, did he?"

"Oh shut up, Freddles." The little girl with the blue paper bunny ears roughly shoved Raina's rescuer aside, "Ignore him, will ya? Dumbutt here ain't… one of _us_." Clutching Raina's hand, she beamed up at her, pop eyes nearly squeezed shut with delight, "Even if he was, he'd still be dumber than me, the big crybaby!"

"Why do you walking tombs always have to be so mean?" Green eyes downcast, little yellow bear turned away, sadly adjusting his purple bow tie, "It's not my fault I hurt a child, Bon Bon. The bad boys put his head in my mouth. Mike hid me after I ran away or they'd've put me in the scooper!"

"Get lost— even for a mere A.I. you're too lame, sticky, and gross to be around us _real ones!"_ Bon Bon sneered, leading a limping Raina away from the weird bush. She pulled Raina down and whipered loudly in her ear, "He doesn't even have a _soul -_ even if he ever does get caught, he can't even die properly _\- loser!_ " There was a loud, incoherent roaring of static nearby followed by another high pitched girly scream. Letting go of Raina's hand and wrapping her blue paper ears over her eyes, Bon Bon fell to her knees, whispering, "Uh oh. Now they've done it— Mike's really mad this time…"


	43. Spats

"Oh dear God, now what?" Raina pushed past Bon Bon where she crouched rocking. Leaving a trail of food that only a toddler could love, she sprinted towards the sound of a fight, only to be blocked by a patch of tall grass that hid purple tigers and a hot pink velociraptor wearing a cardigan like Mr. Roger's who was eating strawberry jam out of a jar with a spoon. The creature, once it recovered from it's shock at seeing her, then asked Raina what time it was as she floundered past it with the voice of Daffy Duck, wet speech impediment and all.

Without glancing at her watch, Raina hollered on her way past, "It's 13:00!"

Raking strawberry jam flavored spit out of her eyes and candy corn and pasta out of her hair, she skidded to a halt after running out of tall grass, having unexpectedly traded purple tigers and a sweets-loving dinosaur for a clearing amidst a child's interpretation of Christmas trees - and a fight that would have been funny if blood hadn't been involved.

Mike, or the bear that Mike currently was, had settled onto his massive haunches, serpentine Polar bear's head whipping back and forth. With a roaring moan, he swatted at the pink fox and the Siamese cat with his massive clawless paws. Only they weren't the not exactly cuddly fuzzballs she'd last seen napping against him up on the golden hill - almost human, they had risen to their back legs to dart in and out, snapping and slashing at him while ducking his blows, trying to get at something he was sitting on, dark blood running down his sides.

Whatever it was, it wore boots.

Not combat boots, not motorcycle boots, not even rubber rain boots, but almost dainty pointy-toed ankle boots that BUTTONED – like a favorite pair from the 1980s that Raina wore until they fell apart and then mourned the death of around the time Kurt Cobain offed himself. Kurt, she could live without, but those boots had been... oh, my God, were those SPATS?

Dead boyfriends, purple tigers, predatory bipedal dinosaurs with a sweet tooth who wore red cardigans, and landscapes that acted like postcards when you walked through them hadn't really registered on Raina, but for some reason the old-fashioned footwear from the dear dead days before her grandmothers were old enough to walk, _did._

What the hell kind of monster wears SPATS, for fuck's sake?

And those weren't snarls and hisses, those were words – the three sort-of animals were screaming at each other while whatever or whoever the Mike-bear was squashing with his huge bear's ass gave out a non-stop stream of POLITE BRITISH-SOUNDING APOLOGIES in between restrained yells of pain.

"Oh, I say, Mr. Bear, would you mind terribly not sitting upon my head? But only if it's not an inconvenience for you!"

"Shut up, _murderer!_ " That was the pink fox – which had jaws that opened almost as wide as a snake's when eating an egg.

"Well, if you're going (ooof!) to (oooof!) be (merciful heavens, don't do that or I'll call the porter and have you removed from the train!) rude, I will simply get up and leave!"

"I'd like to see you try, _asshole!_ " That was the Siamese cat, whose paws had morphed into hands that were almost entirely blue gleaming steel claws that dripped dark blood. "You ain't goin' nowhere, Uncle Mike weighs nearly as much as a small car!"

"Ooooof, I say, ooooof!" exclaimed whomever was buried beneath the bear that had been Raina's old boyfriend, "Nearly? Quite the understatement! Quite the understatement – one always knew one disliked and feared the ursine tribe, and now one knows exactly why!"

"Murderer!" screamed the pink fox again, who, as Raina got closer, realized that it, no _both_ , were really some sort of… robots? The cat-thing looked like someone had glued cheap phun phurr that had survived a violent moth attack onto a cheap Mexican suit of armor, equipped both cat and fox with clusters of old-fashioned straight razors for hands and then set them loose to do what damage they could before the police arrived. "You killed Foxy! You killed my boyfriend, you burned him alive!"

"Hell, and while you're at it, you mailed my twin C.O.D. to South America. Shipping a 14 year old to South America just ain't cool, dude, it just ain't cool!" the cat screeched as it leapt at the bear with all four limbs – the Mike-bear fended it off with a loud bellowing moan, slapping the cat cartwheeling into the top of a construction paper and glitter tree.

"Stop it! You're hurting him!"

"Son of a bitch, you too?" Raina dodged just in time to avoid being plowed over by the girl, Buffy, charging into the fray, the sharpened end of a broken off baseball bat clenched in one fist as she came at Mike with both feet only to be sent flying into the crowd of silent watching children with a yell.

This was all wrong.

This shouldn't be happening.

The rules of this place, as far as Raina had been able to piece them together, excluded any sort of violence. What was setting everyone, including herself, off?

The man under Mike's big ass gave out another loud, pained squeal as what was sitting on him lunged at the cat, the fox, and now Buffy as they came at them both. Murderer or not, nobody deserved to have 700 or more pounds of bear bouncing up and down on them for whatever reasons there might be. Not stopping to realize that a normal human being couldn't take that much downward pressure at one time, much the less over and over, Raina ran forward, dodging the faster moving portions of the fracas and shoved hard at Mike's big ass, yelling, "Stop it! Stop it, you're killing him!"

The Siamese cat whizzed by, eyes twin black pits with two pinpoints of laser blue lights swimming in them. Raina ducked, but not in time so that blood from a fresh cut in her forehead blinded her as it ran down her face as she rolled into a ball to protect her eyes, thinking hard and fast.

This was wrong. This broke the rules. If there was a confrontation, the entire group would flee to someplace safe and start over. There was no bloodshed, there was no violence… something had set them off…

That was when she heard words in the Mike bear's moaning static-filled roars as it smacked its assailants aside without actually harming them… "Stand down, he belongs here - he's one of us! He's one of us!"

Still the cat and the fox, in their not-so-appealing forms, persisted, screeching and hissing, voices like tearing sheet metal and snapping cables under tension as they rebounded from slaps that would have easily removed the doors from a car on impact, "Murderer! Give him to us! We know what to do with murderers – we'll start with his feet, we'll start with his tongue, like we did with you!" as the man Mike was protecting the only way he could wailed in between bounces that he knew nothing whatsoever about any murder, not to mention pirates (dreadful people, unless they were Corsicans, very poetic, for pirates!), he was a _poet_ , and poets only knew _beauty_ and _truth_ — how on Earth could he possibly be a murderer if he hadn't been properly introduced, and anyway, one simply did not go around eliminating strangers, not without at the very least being allowed to exchange calling cards first!

This is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong… What is causing this, what's setting them all off? Raina fell back, nearly missing being decapitated by a whistling sweep of a clawed hand by the Siamese cat as it sliced into the Mike bear's golden pink hide in a gout of black blood, "Stop it!"

Unheeded, the two along with Buffy continued to circle their large opponent and his ass-victim, screaming insults and threats.

"I have had enough!"Raina said, risking a full-out gutting as she tried getting between them all. The combatants paused and stared at her for a second before going at it even harder, "This is stu- son of a bitch!" Raina yelled as one of Mike's massive pink and gold front limbs caught her, sweeping her aside and into the air, only to land right back in the bush she'd touched-down in not fifteen minutes before.

Furious, Raina didn't bother catching her breath as she stormed past the purple tigers and the fashion challenged velociraptor through the grass on the trail she'd beaten down earlier. Pushing her way through the silent ranks of small children she paused, hands on knees, head down, as the pain of the blow from Mike finally caught up with her, making her feel like vomiting.

That was when Raina felt something pull at her shirt. Despite the chaos around her, she looked down.

A small boy, barefoot in a red turtleneck sweater and faded brown corduroy OshKosh overalls with patched knees stared up at her with blue eyes while gripping her shirt with one sticky hand, thumb firmly in his mouth, a battered Winnie the Pooh with a limp purple ribbon around its neck in the crook of one arm. He inclined his tousled white blonde head in the direction of a little girl with bright red pigtails and a red dress who stood off to one side giggling at the snarling tangled mass of bear, cat, fox, and mashed human.

She stood, and turning around, bent so they were face to face, saying, "Sweetie, stand back, it's dangerous." The boy rolled his eyes in exasperation, pulled his thumb out of his mouth with a wet sound and wordlessly pointed at the other child, Pooh's head lolling so that it's stitched on mismatched green button eyes appeared to wink.

That was when Raina realized that wasn't a child he was pointing at before he gestured back at the bellowing, screeching melee. Using both hands, he then pushed her by the shoulders at the stranger, Pooh landing at their feet as he slapped Mike's baton across her palms.

Hands stinging against the slick black length, Raina lurched forward, straightening. Hissing, the little girl or the thing that passed as a little girl turned to meet her, dill-pickle green eyes flaring bright.

"Oh shit, what is that thing?" Raina backed up, half turning to look back at the boy.

Only he was gone, leaving Pooh limp and shabby on the trampled ground. She held back indecisively, and then ran at the… the… _thing_ that bared its irregular steely teeth at her, Mike's baton raised in her hand.


	44. Protective Coloration

_If something exists, something will eat it. Take stone, for instance._

 _Time feeds on stone, gnawing away, so that even if it takes forever, stone is not forever._

 _The same as bone._

 _Bone, as in life's leftovers._

 _Cancer and time eat bone, but there are those who deal with bone once whatever it propped up has died._

 _The Dermestid beetle, for one._

 _Small, unremarkable, and numerous, Dermestids lay their eggs upon the gleaming white surfaces left behind by life so that their larvae burrow into the hardness, leaving behind holes the size of a pencil in their feasting._

 _As the Dermestid beetle to bones, there are small, scuttling things that feed on nightmares._

 _One man's dream of Heaven is the majority's shared Hell: Caligula and Nero living out their dreams and Quin Shi Huang in the east, created feeding grounds that attracted multitudes to feed upon the bounty of misplaced fantasy, as did Khan, Tamerlane, Tepes, Robespierre, and Talaat. Stalin and Hitler, followed Kaiser Bill, while Leopold of Belgium turned a small corner of Africa into his own private Paradise. Mussolini, Amin, and Ceaucescu, their dreams overflowing feeding troughs. Manson, Jones, Kohmeni and Mugabe... all manifesting Heaven in an endless cycle of food creating food._

 _Drawn to Pol Pot's killing fields as he built his dream of an idealized past, a bloated thing burst like a puffball mushroom underfoot, spewing it's many selves to land where they may._

 _One such self drifted upon the wind of rancid dreams, landing in a closet of a little girl named Bianca, sending out mycelium among the dust and forgotten plushies beneath a layer of outgrown shoes, a rancid cuckoo's egg._

 _Bianca's unseen foster sibling fed upon her much the same way a tick embeds itself in a fox's ear to feed and grow fat, giving nothing in return – until one day, it stood up on it's back legs in an obscene parody of it's hostess, stepped out of the closet, and began creating food for itself._

 _It started small: "Who let the cat out?" or "Who left the ten pound roast out on the counter over the weekend so we have to throw it away?" Bianca woke up gasping, her own face grinning back at her, escalating into, "What the hell did the dog ever do to you, Bianca?" or "William, we need to take her to a child psychologist even if our insurance doesn't cover it!" as Bianca screamed unheard in the darkness of her room, the pressure on her chest increasing as her shadow-twin grew and grew, farting in her face when it wasn't asking her to "play"._

 _Thinner and thinner, all Bianca could do was point mutely at the closet whenever her abuelita, her granny, stunned by her escalating crimes would ask, "Madre de Dios, Bianca! What diablo has gotten into you, nino?" until one day, a used-up Bianca no longer gave the shadow twin what it needed. Grinning with jagged steel teeth, it crouched on her chest, asking, "Would you like some ice cream?"_

 _Bianca nodded, breath a raspy squeak. Her warped reflection raised a hand and slipped it between her blue lips._

 _Cold and sweet it was, with a bitter aftertaste. She struggled to swallow it, somehow knowing that if she didn't, she'd drown, drool filling her mouth as her nose began to ooze blood and soft serve._

 _What became Circus Baby stood up, nodding its head in satisfaction while wiping the cocktail of strychnine and soft serve created from its own body on Bianca's favorite stolen tutu, feeding on her terror and pain as she writhed, back arched and heels drumming in a pool of urine that quickly soaked into the carpet. It turned, belching from the final feast of terror and misery the child had given it, and paused, wizened child's face brightening._

 _Turning around and kneeling, it opened its upper chest like the mouth of a Horseshoe crab, a claw shooting out and punching though bone, snagging Bianca's heart. Munching, the parasite walked into the nearest mirror and into the infant Maze, adding twists and turns with every step it took, in search of richer feeding grounds,_

 _Which it found, in a struggling little chain of children's party houses._

 _It made a deal with the owner. A deal he couldn't refuse._

 _A deal that his daughter, Charlie, inherited._

 _Without question._

This is what Raina Dashinsky ran at, baton raised over her head.

And because used parts are cheap, Charlie, never one to turn down a bargain, made more than one control unit.

Circus Baby pulled a new box with a single button from a pocket in it's skirt. Looking it's newest source of food in the eye, it grinned and pushed the button, turning the struggling mass of animatronics and one unpopular poet into a screeching, jerking pile.


	45. Jump Scare

Raina took aim at Circus Baby's head, the baton with it's brass cartoon bear's head decoration whistling through the spice and burnt hair air, only to miss.

Close enough to touch, Circus Baby now stood beside her, grinning.

Raina spun, raised the baton and brought it down on the thing's head, only to double over in agony when the baton connected solidly with her own shins.

Circus Baby was now on the other side of her. Cocking it's horned head, it giggled scratchily and pushed the button on the control unit, holding it down so that the box started giving off sparks. Raina struggled to her knees so that she was nearly eye to green grape eye with the thing. Biting down on the insides of her mouth until they bled, she swung again, only to faceplant on the Crayola lawn when she missed, the electronic shrieks and squeals of the things behind her, while rank upon rank of mute, washed out children, many with horrible wounds, stared at her.

"God damnit, hold still!" she rasped, using the baton to lever herself upright while clumsily lunging at Circus Baby once more.

Who simply was not there.

"Hey." Raina looked down. The little boy was standing beside her, once more tugging on the leg of her now mud-caked sweatpants. He pulled his thumb out of his mouth and said, "Don't aim for the head. Aim for the box. It can't anticipate that kind of move."

"What?"

"Screech!" Raina fell back in slow motion as nose to nose Circus Baby appeared screaming in her face. Breathlessly raising the baton with a whoosh that seemed to take forever through the syrupy air, Raina looked up, Circus Baby was in front of her just out of reach, stubby finger poised over the button. "Trust me, y'all. I've been through this before." The blonde child vanished and the world sped up.

Raina aimed for Circus Baby's head, the fall of the length of ebony taking forever as the creature leered at her, mouth splitting it's head open nearly to it's ears, tongue lolling, teeth glistening,..

…at…

…the…

…last…

…second, Rainaswerved,justahairsothatthebatonsmasheddownontheboxCircusBabyheldshatteringit.

And.

The.

World.

Went back.

To.

 _Normal._

Circus Baby's enraged squeals drowned out those of the writhing pile they stood beside as it came at Raina, claws out, face writhing, "You broke my toy!" it ran at her, fists flailing, "You'll pay for this!"

Bracing for impact, Raina held up Mike's baton to fend Baby off only it ran past her and grabbed the bear who now lay limp on the trampled crayon earth, eyes blank, by the back of the neck.

Circus Baby was now at least eight feet tall as she dragged the bear who flowed into Mike, upright so that he dangled limp as a kitten in its mother's mouth: "You want my dancing bear so bad? Come and GET HIM!" it grated, shaking Mike so that his head lolled, mouth open, tongue out, eyes staring, blood dribbling from his nose, before letting go so that he shambled towards Raina, who reached out to catch him before he went down on his face at her feet.

Raina staggered, arms straining. Alive, Mike had been nearly three hundred pounds of muscle and bone. Had things gone better he probably would have been a first round draft offensive tackle right out of University. Dead, or whatever he was, Mike now felt like he weighed double. Face to face, he caught himself on her shoulders, eyes rolling in separate directions, taking the baton roughly from her. There was a gust of hot spice and sweat, and he opened his mouth, gurgling through a thick flow of black blood in the high light voice of a small child, "Run, run, fast as you can… can't catch me I'm, the…"

Suddenly, he shoved Raina aside. Eyes fixed, he ran, only to vanish with the sound of a ringmaster's whip, a point of blackness no larger than a raisin the only indication that he'd been there at all.

So Raina did the only thing she could: she followed him down the latest rabbit hole.


	46. Yep, That's a Rabbit Hole All Right

The cat and the fox, once again on all fours, rose unsteadily, and staggering, moved with increasing grace and speed towards the point in space where there shouldn't be a point in space, to disappear with the sound of a whipcrack before Buffy's eyes as she pulled herself upright surrounded by her hollow-eyed audience of grayed-out children.

She'd been lucky, the bear had swung one massive forepaw in it's convulsions, throwing her clear, but even the little bit of the voltage she'd caught had been more than enough to set her hair on end and her legs wobbly. "Oh, peachy, now my legs want to fall off!" the Slayer said as she attempted to pick up the stake she'd dropped, missed and faceplanted in crayon and finger paint mud.

Squelchily catching herself, the Slayer rolled over, easing herself onto what felt like a rock, only rocks don't complain. "Oh, I say… we've not even been properly introduced… not that I actually mind!" Oh joy, it was William the wet blanket she'd just set buttock upon.

Bent rimless glasses dangling from one ear as, coated with art supply muck, William floundered unsteadily to his knees as Buffy stood up, exclaiming in a high pitched voice, "Gracious, did anyone get the number of the omnibus which just ran us down in broad daylight? Or was it a bolt of lightning cast down from Heaven by Jove himself sending us sprawling to the cobblestones – which appear to be… oh dear… missing?" He ran one thin, shaking hand through his paint soaked curls, "Regardless, it is our immediate duty to inform the nearest constable of our mishap. The driver of that omnibus should be thoroughly chastised for not looking where he was going!"

"Shut up, William." Buffy said absently as wiping her face off on her sleeve she stared at where first Raina and then the Fox and the Cat, had disappeared, stranding her with this bizarre, useless version of Spike, if this really was Spike, in… ummmm, who knows _where_.

Giles and his books would know… only Giles had dumped her and fled with his books and his tweed back to his flat in London, so, Willow… Willow would know what to do. Only Willow wasn't very useful right now…

…

…

…not that Buffy blamed Willow for her current state…

…that was Warren's fault…

…anyway, Willow wasn't here, and… oh God, where the hell was she, really? And how the hell was she supposed to get the hell out of this hell and back home with it's _Doublemeat Palace_ stink, Dawn's incessant whining over math, too many expenses, and never enough money?

Buffy plopped back down in the rainbow muck, only to have the boy sturdily march over out of nowhere and grab her by the arm, the garish yellow teddy bear with it's mismatched green button eyes firmly gripped by one shabby leg. "Hurry up!" he exclaimed, flapping teddy at her with his free hand, "You'll miss it and you're needed – bring the dummy, too."

"I say, that's no way to speak to a lady!" William exclaimed indignantly, "She may not be the most intelligent creature here, but she's quite pretty!"

"Wasn't talkin' 'bout her, poopy head." The tot paused mid-yank, giving William an intense blue-eyed glare, "Talkin' 'bout YOU!"

"Oh, I say, what a rude little boy! Now go home, nanny is looking for you and she's very, very worried!"

"Ain't got no nanny, nobody wants me!" The child screwed up his face, grunting as he tried to drag Buffy upright and after him, "And if you don't get off y'alls ASSES, it'll be too late – she NEEDS you!"

"Hey!" Buffy found herself being swung upright followed by a kick on the backside so that she floundered towards the now BB sized black spot in reality and fell headfirst in it. As she plummeted into nothing, she looked back and realized that the golden-grassed hill was really the head of a sleeping man, and that the gigantic soldiers overlooking this unasked for wonderland were now looking down and staring at her intently with eyes so blue they were almost black.

With a whipcrack the Slayer was gone.

"I say, was it necessary to kick the lady in the, oh dear… Bloody HELL, I'll get you for that you little street rat!" William bellowed demon-faced as a second kick propelled him into the dark.

The small boy then whistled at the Shaggy Dog, who lay panting on his side in the muck, ragged fur newly scorched. The Shaggy Dog, face shifting from dog to human to somewhere in between, grimaced, sighing, "All right, like, _what-ev-errrrrrr!"_ stood, shook his entire body out so that his floppy ears slapped against the side of his hairy face, and trotted on all fours into the black on the heels of the small boy and his well-loved teddy.


	47. Ariadne in a Flight Suit

_There are many creatures in the waking world as well as the sleeping that have protective shells._

 _Shells which expand and age as they expand and age._

 _Like snails, more particularly, the nautilus._

 _The nautilus is a creature that shouldn't exist in either the waking or the sleeping world, but it does. Looking like something that should be part of the fossil record and not swimming around, taking it's striped, coiled shell with it in a flutter of tentacles, the nautilus feeds and swims and grows, adding chamber after chamber to its tough outer self in an ever-lengthening pearly spiral._

 _As with the nautilus, Circus Baby and its kind had an ever expanding shell, a shell born the second it first entered the dreamtime – the maze, its protective shell, its habitat, its feeding ground, expanding with every step taken, automatic as breathing._

 _And since the night when the dancing bear, a favorite toy alternately cherished and abused as with all favorite toys, rebelled, Circus Baby found itself having to share its domain, its maze, its shell – unfamiliar twists, angles, and turns, human memories and eccentricities now shaping it as much as Circus Baby's every thought, every step._

 _Of course, the arm the bear ripped off and beat Circus Baby with would grow back. In fact it already had, but the unanticipated twists and turns the bear added to the maze were unsettling, enraging – creature of chaos that Circus Baby was, Circus Baby demanded that the chaos that surrounded it be of its own making, and not that of another._

 _Especially another whom had hijacked Circus Baby's protective shell, its feeding ground, its maze without permission – shaping it unconsciously to suit itself thanks to the ichor that had spattered and leaked into the dancing bear's body as it beat Circus Baby with its own arm until Circus Baby was forced to flee into its own maze and hide._

 _Again, the arm would, indeed HAD, grown back: Circus Baby's kind were hard to kill; such a minor loss, though humiliating, was nothing._

 _But still, having to share what was its by right of spore, with its toy, it's rightful prey as it shaped the maze in unfamiliar tangles that didn't smell like Circus Baby, that Circus Baby couldn't control - galled._

 _Circus Baby, new arm not quite hardened to the air, came out of the cracks and crevices of the maze on the warpath, the dancing bear and the clown, endlessly battling over the territory each built with every step – even as the collection of memories, of hopes, dreams, and fear that at one time had been a man who once thought life was finally going his way, now ran blindly though the void, raw maze forming unheeded beneath it's feet, forever new, old as time itself, loose bones against black and white tiles, broken toys, the still-hot jingling empty brass casings of expended M16A4 rifle rounds, the sound of squealing tires and breaking glass, the smell of old carrion and gingerbread…_

…it was into this that Raina fell, landing hard on the gritty salt floor, the knees of her flight suit ripping so that her knees bled unseen in the darkness.

Breathing hard, she heaved herself to her feet, heavy gear making her clumsy, and leaned against the harsh surface of the wall she somehow found in the darkness, pulling off her flight gloves and absently shoving them into a pocket. The place reeked of old basement and stale beer with a faint, spicy undertone, like an empty cookie bag.

Where the hell was she?

Her fingers felt something hard as she rezipped the pocket. Frowning, Raina pulled out a small flashlight. Well, that was something. Let's see, did she remember to put in fresh batteries?

Knees stinging, Raina twisted the little metal cylinder – frabjous joy, she had!

Okay, so the light it gave off was about the size of a beer coaster, but hey, it was better than nothing! She swung the light around, trying to get her bearings.

Dirty black and white tiled floor.

Check.

Boring gray walls that stretched ahead and behind her.

Check.

Stuff that broke and crunched underfoot that she really didn't want to know more about.

Check.

One hand lightly touching the cool, rough wall, the other holding the flashlight, the familiar, comforting weight of a flight helmet on her head that she hadn't felt since bad choices and cancer had forced her out of the Navy before she could claim a pension, Raina started walking, trying not to think too hard about what clattered and shattered beneath her feet until the flashlight started dimming.

Annoyed, you'd think in a weird place like this where velociraptors wore sweaters and ate jam and things that looked sort of like dogs sounded like Shaggy from _Scooby Doo_ , she'd be able to keep a set of flashlight batteries going, Raina switched the light off and letting it dangle by it's lanyard around her neck, inched forward in the dark, boots scooting along the floor even as she hoped that the floor would stay where it was and not unexpectedly open up into yet another bottomless pit.

Agonizing inch by inch, she shuffled forward in the nasty-smelling darkness, the smell of stale beer growing strong enough to drown out the cookie scent, and the wall beneath her fingertips began to pulse.

Not like a heartbeat, but as if somebody, somewhere was pounding on a drum, only it was a silent drum.

She took an unexpected turn left.

And then another.

And another.

Followed by another, the beer smell joined by that of overflowing ashtray, and sweat. She took a series of right turns and the smells and the silent thudding started to fade, to be replaced by the scent of dust and old dead mouse.

Raina stopped.

There was something tangled around her feet.

Suddenly sweating, Raina froze. "Let me guess, there's giant spiders in this shithole?" Breathing barely under control, she switched on the flashlight and waved it's fading beam around in panic. Velociraptors with a taste for strawberry jam, she could take; likewise that Circus Baby thing which only pissed her off, but spiders? Spiders? No fucking thanks!

When spiders, giant or otherwise failed to appear, Raina sighed with relief and sagged against the wall and shone the rapidly fading beam down at her boots.

Yarn?

She frowned, sweat trickling out from under her helmet and running down her face.

What the hell was yarn doing in this goofy place?

Blotting her eyes on the back of her sleeve, Raina knelt, pulled out a parachute knife, opened it, and started to cut away at the khaki colored tangle that had wrapped itself around her feet, the flashlight tossing wild beams of light all around her with every motion as it dangled around her neck.

Where had she seen it before?

Grannies Kowalski and Dashinsky both knitted incessantly, their gnarled but strong hands with their big peasant knuckles unconsciously turning out a never-ending stream of blankets, booties, sweaters, and socks when they weren't doing the 1001 other things required of Polish _babula_ who fulfilled their hard-earned role of family matriarch with professional grade dedication. So, okay, she'd seen yarn before, but khaki yarn?

She remembered the rainbow hat, scarf, and glove set granny, no _BABULA,_ Kowalski had given her early for her 11th birthday – something _babula_ Kowalski had instinctively known she'd like and need the time dad's carrier had unexpectedly docked in Alaska for a week and she and her brothers had been allowed to visit him. She had been so delighted with the beautiful set that even after they all wound up in Southern California when her dad was made a Top Gun flight instructor a few months later, that she'd hung them for almost a year on the back of the door to her room so every time she closed the it she could see the visual manifestation of a __babula_ 's_ love for a granddaughter she rarely understood.

Unlike her brothers (who always got underwear) _babula_ Dashinsky sent her hand-knit socks every year, always some sort of rainbow, sometimes with TOES and once with a pattern of alternating lightning bolts and little sky blue Pegasi's with rainbow manes and tails that were really little TASSELS knitted around the cuffs that she had literally worn out, but khaki?

Raina raised the recently cut strand to her nose and took a cautious sniff.

And smiled.

It smelled… _good_. There was that spicy scent, and something delicious that she couldn't identify. Holding the cut end of the yarn that stretched into the darkness she'd just walked out of, Rain folded the knife and slipped it one-handedly into a side pocket. She then turned off the flashlight, and in the darkness, began following the strand, winding it unseen into a ball as she went exactly the way both _babulas_ had shown her, one shoulder lightly brushing the cold wall as she made left turn after left turn, the scent of stale beer, overflowing ashtrays, and the muffled beat drums growing stronger and stronger with every turn her unseen hands made.


	48. Itsy Bitsy Spider, Yeah, Right!

Slappity slappity flip-flop flip-flop.

Silently running her hand along the cold, gritty wall of the maze, Buffy groped her way into a corner, yanking William after her while blowing out the match he'd given her seconds before while the two of them floundered around in the dark on the other side of the hole in reality they'd just been booted through.

Slappity slappity flip-flop flip-flop.

Whatever it was, was coming closer.

Slappity slappity flip-flop flip-flop.

"Oh, I say—" William whispered excitedly.

"Shhhhhh!" Slipping her free hand over William's mouth in the fetid pitch-blackness, Buffy pulled the stake out of her waistband.

Slappity slappity flip-flop flip-flop.

The thing was almost on top of them.

Slappity slappity flip-flop flip-flop.

Whatever it was, it was big and it was loud. Buffy tensed, ready to spring…

Slappity slappity flip-flop flip-flop.

…and didn't as a glowing spider the size of a Great Dane sauntered towards them.

Her jaw dropped unseen in the darkness.

Because, not only was it a glowing spider the size of a Great Dane, it was a glowing spider wearing _flip-flops._

Flip-flops.

Eight of 'em - 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 - as in, X("Slappity slappity flip-flop flip-flop.") = 4+4("NOPE!")

The radiant spider, which looked like a tarantula badly in need of a trip to the salon or a leftover prop from a death metal concert with a really bad set designer and worse roadies, flappity flappitied to a halt in front of them.

It stared up at them.

They stared down at it.

All eight eyes suddenly intense, the gigantic, fulsome spider with extremely bad taste in footwear (they didn't even match!) popped a squat and relieved itself by Buffy's shoe with a loud, wet noise like a rapidly deflating balloon.

And yes, that too, _glowed._

"Ewwwww, gross gross GROSS!" She hollered backing away, nearly dropping the stake. Blushing unseen, William covered his eyes as he gallantly reached out and attempted to cover Buffy's with his free hand seconds too late as with complete nonchalance, the spider, having done it's… ummmm, _business_ , gave them a jaunty salute with the first of its four sets of long hairy limbs before continuing upon it's slappity slappity flip-flop flip-flop merry way.

William abruptly removed his hand from Buffy's face, exclaiming in a high pitched squeaky voice as if someone was strangling him, "One simply does not know what to say in such a situation!" he paused, gulping loudly, "Good gracious, do you hear tribal drums?"


	49. Just Sleep, Just Dream

Bones and empty beer cans rattling beneath her boots, Raina shuffled her way through the pitch-black darkness, closer and closer to the source of the thudding beat and the dive bar stink, length after length of unseen khaki yarn whispering through her fingers as she carefully wound it into the growing ball she held.

Stumbling and swearing around a hidden turn, she came into the flickering light of a neon sign with half the neon missing.

Seated beneath "T-e Bro-ze" a man sat or rather _slumped_ on a stool that was tipped against the wall so that his huge belly and bulging thighs sloped backwards, pooling beneath his too-small sweat pants and pit-stained muscle shirt, lank blonde hair shadowing his eyes, unkempt stubble glittering red in the neon flash of the sign above him.

Beside him, there was an open doorway in the bitter salt wall, the sounds of a small town bar band and it's audience clattering out at her in a blast of stale beer, cigarette stink, and too much perfume.

Raina came to a halt, dropping the ball of yarn without even realizing she had so that it rolled beneath the stool, which abruptly came down on all four legs with a thud that could be heard over the bar din.

The fat man dropped a half-unraveled scarf, and glanced up at her from the shadow of his dirty hair in a brief flash of blue before flapping one catcher's mitt of a hand at the door, mumbling, "No cover tonight."

"Yeah, thanks…" Raina walked around his sweaty, inert bulk, suddenly aware that she was wearing a flight suit and helmet in a bar and that all the other women were wearing halters, and mini dresses in the sweltering fug as they laughed and flirted around her as she made her way towards the stage.

Behind her Raina heard somebody yell, "…fat, lazy slob! …hired you to give this place some class… fat piece of shit! That's it fatso, go take the garbage out, I'll take over the door …big lazy son of a bitch… Jeeeezus! When's the last time you showered?"

Buffeted by the crowd of partiers, Raina took off her helmet, holding it so that it dangled by the strap from one hand, eyes fixed ahead of her, trying to forget that she was at least ten years older than them, that her close-cropped hair to make wearing a helmet easier was nothing like the gloriously flowing manes and braids of the girls around her – and that she had neglected, as usual, to wear makeup.

A girl waving a lit cigarette showing more cleavage than tank top, giggle-shrieked across Raina's path. She stopped to let her pass, puzzled.

This place was familiar.

The band came to a crashing halt; enthusiastic whoops filled the air as they charged into the next high-energy song. They weren't very good, but the dancers didn't seem to care. Raina suddenly felt in need of a drink and shouldered her way towards the bar, more aware than ever that she was the tallest woman in the room even if she was wearing combat boots and not the platform wedges most of the girls were wearing. "Hey, watch it!" she exclaimed as somebody pushed past her. She half turned, ready to take a swing, but it was only the sloppy fat man slowly, painfully lugging an overflowing garbage can through the partiers.

Taller than Raina, he looked away and continued his slow, lumbering course towards the back door beside the stage, broad back and shoulders hunched. Raina rolled her eyes and shrugged; beer would be good about now. Lots of beer.

Ewwwwwww, what's that smell? Doritos marinated in dill pickle juice? Raina leaned over the bar, waving a five-spot. Well, hell, it was a small town bar in an old warehouse on a busy night – what do you expect?

And yeah, she recognized this place. "The Bronze". Mike had handed her a crumpled flyer advertising a Monday night open jam session at some bar, saying in his usual wordless way: would she want to do it? It was an hour away, they could hang out, maybe play if there was room, and nobody would object to two officers out of uniform hanging out in a dive playing guitar, him on bass, because it was an hour away from their duty station and nobody'd ever heard of the place, yeah?

Hell, yeah! It'd been a while since Raina'd jammed with her friends in high school in one family garage or another, why not? Mike was the one who was good at it; maybe she could sit off to one side and warm up? So, they'd piled their shit into the back of her Miata and gone out the back gate right after shift change to some Podunk town nobody'd ever heard of named Sunnydale and drove around in circles until they located the venue an hour in. After paying the cover fee, they found themselves up on a small, crowded stage with a bunch of local juke box hero wanna-bes that included a scruffy under-aged kid with badly dyed hair and too many leather bracelets on bass who just looked at the two interlopers who were way too old to be doin' this shit and then grinned wolfishly when Mike cut loose, using Mike's rolling thunder as a springboard for his own magic.

Raina had sat back, noodling around on her beat-up Fender, enjoying being part of the whole scene; proud to know a guy who though quiet, could be interestingly loud when he had to.

"Ewwwwwwwww!" Raina sniffed. Where was that smell of Doritos marinating in dill pickle juice coming from? And a whiff of… spice?

Somebody bumped into her where she leaned against the crowded bar, "Watch it, fatass!" Raina, now more than three beers in, snarled. The overweight bouncer turned garbage man edged away, slowly, painfully, making his way through the crowded dance floor, lugging yet another overflowing garbage can of empty bottles and worse towards the back door besides the stage, a strand of khaki colored yarn dragging from the heel of one scuffed half-laced combat boot.

Betcha wanna-be here lives in mommy's basement at the age of 30, jacking off to Wonder Woman comics when he's not hauling bar slop around? Wears boots from some Army Navy Surplus store and brags that he's some sort of big 'Storm hero when he can't even see his own dick hidin' under that big ol' belly! Raina thought sourly, muttering out loud, "Probably has a big ol' bulldog tattoo paid for with mommy's credit card on his fat ass. Thinks it'll get him laid when the closest he's ever been to Parris Island is a goddam recruiting poster in the post office… _fuckin' LOSER!"_ she hollered to nobody in particular.

That's when she glanced up from her beer at the stage behind her and saw him.


	50. The Mirror of Identical Faces

Raina stared, watching the tall blonde man uncoil an amp cord patched with electrical tape before plugging it into the familiar beat up axe on the half empty stage. It was, it really was—" _Yo._ " A girl taller than Raina sat down hard on the stool beside while a tall, dark-haired man with an adolescent boy wearing oddly old fashioned suits stood nonchalantly off to one side, eyes fixed on the two women, the bar patrons moving through them.

"Hell, if this's s'posed to be a dream, why _not_ two guys nobody but me sees staring at us?" Raina thought. "Anyway, what's long drink want? If she wants a fight, well, she'll get one!" Raina squinted through the cigarette haze at the newcomer thinking she might be the cat girl, but maybe not.

No cat ears, for starters.

She looked again. Nope, no cat ears, but tall girl _did_ have close-cropped blonde hair and intense blue eyes set in a square face with a slightly pointed cleft chin that vaguely reminded Raina of… Mike's?

Yeah, she looked like Mike if he'd had a…a… little sister? Cousin? ...daughter? The lanky intruder studied Raina with calculatingly narrowed eyes and then gave an abrupt jerk of her head so that her multiple ear piercings glittered and swung against the dark brown leather of her scuffed bomber jacket and makeupless face.

Somebody poked Raina from the other side, interrupting the stare-down when she turned to tell the whoever it was to fuck off, only to lock eyes with the same face on a shorter, curvier body; like Betty Boop's punk granddaughter had Betty Boop ever bothered to reproduce.

Trapped between the mirror of two identical faces, but not exactly in the mood for a dust-up, Raina nonchalantly turned and focused on the stage behind them. The taller of the two clamped a large, long-fingered hand down on Raina's shoulder, pinning her in place whispering in an echoing hiss that cut through every sound in the Bronze, "So you think you can take Uncle away from us, bitch?"

"Uncle? Who the hell's your uncle, _little girl?"_ Raina freed her shoulder and leaning back on the bar on her elbows, took a long pull from the longneck in her hand feigning unconcern. She glanced up at the stage at the other end of the room on the off chance that Mike was still setting up if the dream or whatever this was turned out to be how they'd spent the evening together on stage that night once upon a long, long time ago.

"You know who he is… _bitch."_ The smaller of the two leered up at her, exposing long sharp canines. Her tongue lolled like a dog's… no, a fox's inches, from Raina's face.

Raina put a hand squarely in the thing's chest, and gave a firm push.

Bracing herself against the bar, foxy abruptly snapped her mouth shut, dark lips curling in a sneer, gesturing at the stage at the back of the room, "Bitch, we don't care what you two were on the other side of life. You can't have him back, he's ours now, we made him: he belongs to us!"

"Why would he want something like, like _you?"_ the taller one sniggered nastily, leaning in on Raina once more, "You _ho'!_ You're flatter than I am and I was fourteen when the purple guy and my twin created me with blood and hot irons!"

"Ashes to ashes and dust to dust – why wear a bra when you got no bust?" Shorty jeered, adding, "You look more like a boy than a girl. Only a molester would want you!"

Giggling, tall girl chimed in, "Anorexic much? Bulimia? Yo, babe! What's it like to barf up everything you've ever eaten to fit someone else's idea of beauty? Joke's on you baby: only dogs like bones!"

"I'm not… what the hell are you talking about? I never… Mike didn't care that I wasn't a girly girl!" Trying not to show that their little High School locker room jabs had landed a little too close, Raina took another deep pull of beer.

"Little do you know – but we doooooooooooooo." Cooed lil'bit, walking her dark-nailed fingers up Raina's arm, "He likes currrrrrrves… and biiiiiiiig tits!" She snapped her fingers in Raina's face and Raina slapped her hand away. It was cold and hard and her fingers tingled from the impact.

"We should know; we _made_ him!" Talldrink jeered, adding, "You broke him, so he's ours, not yours! He loves _us,_ not you _,_ _never you!"_ Talldrink's slit pupils blossomed into black pools as she crowded in on Raina, snatching the beer bottle out of Raina's hand and smashing it down on the edge of the bar. Broken amber glass and beer sprayed out from the impact in a slow motion peacock's tail, glittering shards and drops wobbling and turning with infinite slowness before Raina's eyes as the man and the boy that came in behind the fox and the cat put their heads together.

 _The red-eyed man bent to the boy with the single blue black eye and eye patch, a sardonic smile splitting his narrow pale face, murmuring, "Outside of time, you and the cat shall meet. She will ease your heart." He straightened, adjusting his immaculate white gloves. Who the hell wears gloves when it's not a formal dress parade?_

 _One-eye brushed his ragged dark hair away from his face, black coat billowing around him, "And the dark lady who walks like a man?"_

 _(At this Raina frowned, exclaiming, "I do not! (I think. Maybe?)")_

 _"That one?" The taller man said dismissively, silky voice dopplering in and out of Raina's ears. "In the mirror, you will meet her in another body. You will know her by her eyes. Now away, we've pressing matters to attend to." He made a lazy gesture with one spotless gloved hand as the two disappeared in a bird-shaped roar of flame, unnoticed by the people around Raina as they moved through the hot, syrupy air until with a blink everything sped up again and Raina's heartbeat was no longer thunder in her ears, back to reality._

A reality where Raina saw Mike, up on the stage, plugging his old pawn shop bass into an amp when only a few seconds ago there'd been a lame speed metal band with a lead guitarists who should have been garroted with his own E string before he'd ever been allowed to plug into his amp.

"What was that, _bitch?"_ Raina snarled, turning a tin soldier missing a leg that hadn't been there before over and over between her fingers as she tried to look past the cat, the fox, and the milling crowd of bar patrons at the man as he tuned the bass which was now slung over his neck, the fat man with red stubble trudging past him with yet another bag of garbage towards the back door beside the stage.


	51. Pooh

"Oh dear! Oh dear!" The little garishly yellow bear with green eyes waddle-ran through the twists and turns of the maze – dozens of new twists and turns had appeared since it last had been alone except for the blonde Raggedy Andy doll it clutched in it's stubby arms. "Oh dear! Oh dear!"

 _It's amazing how fast life can change in a matter of seconds. Mike at 14, who went by "Mickey" thanks to there being three other Mikes in his class, whose biggest problem at the time he found his grandfather face down on the horn of his pickup truck after a massive stroke, was: primer red Krylon? Or primer black Krylon? There were two half-cans in the toolshed out back of the farmhouse: these things mattered._

 _Mickey's Krylon dilemma was triggered by the new girl, Mary Lou Rehagen, the pretty, and very tall blonde daughter of the new beautician who worked at his gramma's beauty parlor,_ _"Katie's Kut 'n Kurl"_ _._ _Realizing in his wooly-headed adolescent way that his first idea, to run up to her with his tongue hanging out while waving his arms and screaming, "I'm tall! You're tall! Let's make tall babies!" was a very, very bad one, Mickey'd been hard put for a way to express his feelings for her. He'd just finished two days in ISS for being one of three guys recently caught about to flush a cherry bomb down one of the boy's locker room toilets just to see what would happen. Such loud PDA on his part juuuuusssssstttttt might be enough to get him suspended at school and grounded at home._

 _Again._

 _Still, if it was worth feeling, it was worth writing down._

 _In Krylon._

 _For the entire world to see._

 _On the ultimate venue: the town water tower._

 _At two in the morning._

 _But in which color?_

 _How-EVER in a town of 1200 (give or take a few dogs and new babies), "Mickey loves Mary Lue Lu! Loo! LUE!" in flat red or black spray paint letters three feet high, would be enough to bust him without the town's only full time cop putting much effort into it._

 _Worth the risk? Yeah buddy!_

 _Potential legal, no DEFINITE legal consequences aside, Mickey'd shaved (First time!) right after school after chores as part of his preparations for his grand romantic gesture, seven stragglers: six on his upper lip, one off to the side like a broomstraw, all bright red (Which was ate up! He was blonde… and what the hell? The patch on his chest straggling down across his belly to his... his… BLUSH! was red too). Reeking of granddad's Old Spice, Mickey jogged across the farmyard to tell granddad to cut it out for gramma because she couldn't hear the evening news on the radio while she made dinner with all that racket._

 _Only to reel back, breathing hard against the beat-up Ford 150s bed on the driver's side once he'd reached the truck and found out why granddad's truck horn wouldn't stop._

 _Gramma,_ _hands stinking of chopped onions and_ _royally pissed because the noise hadn't stopped, found Mickey slumped on the pea gravel of the driveway, back against the truck, arms around his knees, rocking, face buried in his arms, the Ford's horn like a tornado siren cutting through the cool April evening and the neighbor's complaints._

 _For a big ol' grown ass boy of fourteen, Mickey sure could have used "Pooh" about then._

"Oh dear! Oh dear!" The little bear's stubby legs propelled it through the maze, trying to find Mike. Things had gone very badly, oh so very badly and the little bear, whom Mike had found in his first trip through the maze as it built itself behind and around him with every ichor dripping step he took, had lost its way in the new twists and turns. "Very bad, very much bad! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" it squeaked, "I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry, I got lost!"

 _It had fled into the maze on the trail of Circus Baby after it broke programming: biting down on and killing a child no thanks to a crowd of teenage boys who didn't belong backstage who put the child's head in the little yellow bear's mouth in the middle of a reassuring sentence._

 _Wired to love and please children, to seek them out and comfort them, something had snapped in the little yellow bear, a spark, a flare, a whatever: for the first time it understood the concept of "guilt", of "failure" and when it realized it was to be deactivated and destroyed as a safety hazard, it realized a third concept: "death"._

 _It didn't want to "die"._

"I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!"

 _It wanted to "please", it wanted to "interact". It wanted to be "complete"._

 _If you are" dead", you are "incomplete"._

 _The thing that had once been the boy "Mickey", the man "Mike", now a swirling collection of circuits, nightmares, memories, pain and regret, knew this, and affectionately called it "Pooh" after the ragged toy that had been found with him as a baby in an East St. Louis motel room, and let it "live"._

 _Leading to a fourth and then a fifth new idea: "gratitude" and "love"._

"Oh dear! Oh dear!"

 _One of Mickey's earliest memories was "Pooh". "Pooh" was garish. "Pooh" was cheap. "Pooh" was gross, chewed on, sticky, and very, very grubby._

 _But when the only friend you have at the age of one is chewed on, sticky, and grubby and smells of dirty diaper and rancid formula, and you don't have much to talk about anyway, you don't mind._

 _No, not at all._

"I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!" The little yellow bear with the mismatched green eyes tumbled over it's own stubby feet with a crash, dropping the boy doll and losing its little top hat. "I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!" It clumsily pulled itself upright, placed the hat back on its head and then fumblingly picked up the doll, stroking its matted yellow yarn hair while rocking it like a baby, "Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!"

 _"Pooh" came from one of those vending machines with a claw in it that you see at big box stores and truck stops. You drop in a coin, grab the joystick, push it this way and that way and the claw hesitantly drops down from the top of the glass box it before vaguely groping at a lot of really cheap knockoff versions of more desirable toys piled up in the glass box._

 _Sometimes it actually grabs something before the coin runs out, and the excitement of actually getting it to grab something, ANYTHING initially outweighs the actual value of what was grabbed._

"Hooray!" the little yellow bear was running again, heading towards the erratic flash of a broken neon sign in the darkness. "Hooray!"

 _"Pooh" was one such minor victory, easily discarded once the thrill wore off – the garish yellow little plushie wound up Mickey's only companion after his mother pulled it out of a roadside park trash can and handed it to him to quiet him while negotiating with a long haul trucker the price of a bed in a nearby cheap motel, McDonald's for breakfast, with lots of sweaty fun and games for the trucker._

 _Later that evening, Mickey and "Pooh" killed time sleeping in a closed motel dresser drawer like always as Mickey's mother and the trucker engaged in business as previously arranged. It was nice to have company other than Gideon's Bible in the confined, stale pot-smelling darkness._

 _Even after Mickey's mother got busted for solicitation and possession,_ _"Pooh" and Mickey were still inseparable companions: "Pooh" came with him when the social worker delivered him to his gramma and granddad two hours south of St. Louis in the Missouri Bootheel._

 _Granddad and gramma, who had no idea Mickey even existed until a few days before, learned to live with the (ahem) fragrant "Pooh" because Mickey screamed inconsolably when gramma took the nasty, smelly yellow thing away and dumped it in the burn barrel out back. In the face of such violent heartbreak, gramma settled for dropping "Pooh" into the washing machine with some old towels and a LOT of Clorox and Tide, holding the sobbing Mickey in front of the little glass window so he could watch his friend go "Wheee!" 'round and 'round in the whirling suds._

 _Mickey only quieted when the much worse for wear plushie came out all hot, fragrant, and a whole lot brighter from the dryer two hours later._

"I'm coming! I'm coming!"

 _Though "Pooh" went through several eyes, Mickey eventually had to learn to do without "Pooh" for hours at a time; Kindergarten was rough without "Pooh" even if it waited patiently on Mickey's bed in Mickey's little room at the back of the six room farmhouse at the edge of town four years later. As to the thumb-sucking, well, getting teased about it cleared that up pretty fast._

"Darn my short legs!" the little yellow bear pattered toward the light. It had followed the being, the collection of thoughts, dreams, pain and blood runes that had rescued it from the scooping room, mingling with the souls of unwanted children that Mike attracted and collected. In it's devoted loyalty to the tin soldier, it never questioned the blue bunny girl when it allowed her to hide a chip within it's hollow head, telling it that Mike would want it that way. That Mike whom it loved very much needed the little yellow bear to hide it from Circus Baby, who wanted to hurt Mike with it. "Sorry! Sorry!" it exclaimed, toddling past the empty stool by the door to the Bronze. "I can't keep up! I can't keep up!"

 _Eventually "Pooh" spent more and more time on Mickey's bed as Mickey started to ease into the life of the little town his mother abandoned forever at the age of fourteen. When he wasn't at school, he was sweeping floors at gramma's beauty shop for candy money or riding beside granddad in granddad's big rig in a car seat watching the world go by every summer, with granddad picking him up every year on the last day school in his freshly washed big rig in the bus line (Always a great big, "Wow." Of envy and awe on the part of his classmates), maybe heading for Oregon, or how about Texas or Maine? In between there was 4-H, Boy Scouts, Pop Warner Football, or wandering around town with a gang of cousins, whom he now towered over, looking for trouble and fishing worms when there wasn't ice to break on puddles or Sunday school followed by pot roast._

 _"Pooh" was patient. "Pooh" was always there, needed or not._

"Wait for me!" The boy or was it the rag doll that looked like a boy started to appear to the little yellow bear as soon as it swallowed the chip.

The little yellow bear didn't care. The boy kept it company in the dark even if sometimes it asked the little yellow bear questions it couldn't answer, and the rag doll, which was never around when the boy was, likewise.

 _At the age of 11, Mickey needed "Pooh" again when the woman who was his mother was found naked and dead on the side of an East St. Louis highway. Mickey didn't remember her; as far as he was concerned, it had always been Granddad and gramma._

 _But "Pooh" was there, before, during, and after the funeral, which was just him, gramma, and granddad in a place somewhere in St. Louis and a preacher he didn't recognize and never saw again. After that Mickey realized that people stared at him, frowning, muttering, "God help those two if he turns out as bad as her!"_

 _"Her" being his mother, the woman whose face Mickey only glimpsed before they closed the casket and lowered it into the ground one blustery January morning where the sound of ice on the Mississippi River grinding against itself distantly echoed on the wind, gramma and granddad's faces blank._

 _They had taken Mickey to McDonald's, a rare treat usually savored, afterwards, "Pooh" sitting on his lap after riding in the pocket of his winter coat on the ride up from the Bootheel._

 _Now little more than a floppy body and a frayed head with two mismatched buttons from granddad's old workshirts for eyes, "Pooh" was hidden in Mickey's school backpack or jacket pocket within easy touching distance until a twelfth grader snatched it away and started teasing Mickey about it on the school bus ride home one afternoon while the other kids laughed._

 _Mickey broke the big boy's nose and gave him two black eyes, gaining OSS for a week, which is quite an accomplishment when one is only in the fifth grade._

 _"Pooh" disappeared not long after that, possibly along the line of of "big boys don't cry". Anyway, what does an eleven year old big enough to pass as fourteen need with a ratty stuffed yellow bear with most of the fuzz wore off?_

The little yellow bear clutching the boy rag doll paused at the doorway of the Bronze, processing what it saw, chirping. "Where is Mike? Where is Mike?"

 _At the age of fourteen, after finding his granddad in the truck, Mickey really, really needed "Pooh" when suddenly he found himself being passed from household to household to household, his letter jacket, his FFA jacket, his Scout uniform with all the badges he and granddad had worked so hard together to earn – his football awards, his fishing tackle, his guitar, his baseball cards, the ribbons he'd won for showing calves in 4-H, disappearing one by one by one with every move until one night he found himself in a group home in Poplar Bluff with only a few pictures of his grandparents and one of his mother at the age of fourteen and the clothes on his back at the age of sixteen (big boys don't cry), passing as nineteen (big boys don't cry) so that years later, the collection of random bits and pieces, the raggedy man, that had once been Mike, Mickey, let the little yellow bear follow him while vaguely remembering the comfort that a cheap yellow ragged plushie can bring a child when things are horrible.  
_

"I see him! I see him!" the little yellow bear joyfully exclaimed to the rag doll it cradled, "There he is! I see him!" as it toddled onto the crowded dance floor of The Bronze.


	52. Pooh, too

_…anyway, once upon a time not long after Mike woke up sane, Bon Bon presented the little yellow bear with a little green plastic chip and told it that the chip was very important to Mike and to hide it for him._

 _The little yellow bear was delighted._

 _Finally it could repay the debt._

 _Joyfully the little yellow bear opened it's head, concealing the chip in the empty space behind it's eyes._

 _Mike's secret was safe._

 _…and the little boy that started to visit the little yellow bear immediately after that was very welcome company – though surrounded by children it could only hear, the little yellow bear missed seeing children, being around children, interacting with children._

 _…and the two of them became inseparable as both ran as fast and as hard they could to keep up with the swirling cloud of thoughts, dreams, and memories that called itself "Mike"._

 _…even as the Shaggy Dog ran at their side, urging them on through the dark of the Maze as "Mike" howled and raved a few seconds out of reach._

 _After all, a boy needs his dog and his best friend._

 _(Even when they constantly betray him.)_


	53. Radioactive

"I said, "He loves _us_ , not _you_. Never _you!_ "" Blondie gave a jeering laugh right out of a girl's high school locker room, waving the broken bottle a little too close to Raina's face, "We made him. We pulled him apart, bit by bit…"

"…he just lay there and took it, the big dummy!" Short stuff added coyly before exclaiming, "Hey, I was talking to you!"

Eyes fixed, the toy soldier dropped unheeded from Raina's slack fingers, landing on the sticky concrete at full attention, bayonetted rifle shouldered as she pushed through the crowd of dancers. Up on the stage, the drummer started a familiar 1-2 beat as the scrawny kid with the wolf grin swapped his bass for an old Fender six-string. Absently mumbling, "Back to the basement, fat boy. Nobody wants you." she pushed past the fat man, his feet tangled in khaki yarn.

 _It had started like this, that amazing, strange night so long ago._

 _Mike had plugged in his old pawnshop bass while she'd gone to the bar to get a couple of longnecks, not intending to play after all. It was great plunking around with a few friends in dad's garage, a school gymnasium, or in her room with the amp turned way down, but actually playing in front of a real audience suddenly didn't feel so hot._

 _…and the kid with the scruffy hair and wolf grin had grinned up at Mike and Mike had given that slow grin of his back. They'd high-fived, something she'd never seen Mike do with anyone._

 _…and she'd got the beer and turned around as the drummer started the opening riff of an old Firm tune from her high school days— one that she'd loved._

 _…and the kid started right up on the Fender, with Mike on his fretless bass right on count rumbling beneath, the two of them circling each other until with a nod at the microphone, the kid stepped back and Mike started to sing, left hand flowing up and down the neck, right hand releasing a steady, controlled flow of R &B thunder, eyes fixed on her as left-handedly he grabbed a beer bottle, sliding it up and down the strings...  
_

 _"Well I'm not uptight, not unattracted…"_

 _She'd heard Mike sing cadence while working his fire team early in the morning out on the parade ground, but nothing like this – it felt like she was the only person in the room aside from him and that the two of them were working their way through heavy surf as it lifted and tossed them at each other. It was a Harley Davidson at full throttle, it was frightening, it was enticing, it was almost too much - she'd dropped the longnecks so that they'd shattered on the floor unheeded at her feet as she'd walked forward, mesmerized._

 _"...turn me on tonight, 'cause I'm radioactive… radioactive!"_

 _He'd held out his hand and she'd taken it, the whole thing unreal as he effortlessly lifted her without even missing a word, a beat, onto the stage and she'd found her own guitar in her hands and the two of them had played not with but AT each other, the scruffy, underage kid stepping back in a lash of amp cord, watching them from the shadows beside the amp stack, hands loose on the strings of the Fender, grinning so broadly you could see his back teeth as she and Mike circled and pursued each other while the kids down on the floor danced._

 _"There's not a fight, and I'm not your captive…"_

And now, here again, she was moving towards the stage and Mike as she remembered him, golden, alive, frightening in his intensity, looking down at her, left hand working the frets, right reaching out to her… red silk do-rag streaming over his shoulder like a pirate's… past her…

There was a tug at her flight suit, "Look. Again." said the scowling little boy in worn overalls beside her on the dance floor, shabby yellow teddy bear under one arm. He gestured all around them, "This is a lie."

Raina shook her head, "No." She continued moving forward, almost black brown eyes fixed on Mike's, falling into a blue moon pool, body thudding in time to the beat, pushing past the fat man with red stubble who had paused in his garbage hauling, staring up at the same stage, mouth agape, large, square stained teeth and plastic painted eyes glinting in the harsh light under a shaggy mass of unkempt blonde hair, as the golden man up on stage reached past her to take the hands of a short, plump girl with red pig-tails with more cleavage than cami.

"Hey!" Raina yelled, "This isn't how it goes!" Mike's eyes shifted, the beginning of a golden beard just showing on the edge of his jaw, saying, "I don't do dudes." Both hands out, he crouched, pulling the squealing redhead who was all but falling out of her top onto the stage.

"Oh for God's sake, y'all!" the small boy rolled his eyes as he tugged at the heedless Raina, "I don't do dudes!" echoing in her head like a slap. Puzzled, the scruffy kid shrugged before he resumed playing, "I want to play with you baby, I want to lay with you…" picking up the slack when Mike and the giggling red-head began grinding against each other, the other girl giving her a dismissive green-eyed look as she slid her hands down the front of Mike's…

"Hey!" Raina yelled again, only not as loud, the music thundering slowly around her, "This isn't how it…"

"Great. Plan B! Plan B!" Shaking his head, the small boy walked away through the slowly moving legs of the adults that surrounded him on the dance floor, teddy limp in his arms, the Shaggy Dog on all fours shambling at his heels.

"I. Don't. Do. Dudes."

And in that forever echoing moment Raina felt a stabbing pain go up her right foot as it came down on the bayonet of the one-legged toy soldier, the tiny blade easily slicing through the sole of her combat boot like a hot knife through butter, the pain stabbing clear to her fingertips, remembering that one weekend before it all went wrong when Mike had only shaved when he felt like it, leaving an uncharacteristic "soul patch" under his lower lip when he'd bothered that had been an unexpected bright, coppery red, borrowing her black bandanna so his scalp wouldn't burn when they were on the beach at Big Sur…

…and that the man up on the stage wasn't a man, and that Mike's bass had been fretless, so he'd had to concentrate more on his fingering, making his music more complex, more fluid...

…and that the chubby red head's pig tails were horns and that her teeth were jagged steel and that the man she was all but bumpin' uglies with in front of everyone was a ragged rabbit playing a y-shaped guitar that didn't even have strings as with blank eyes it mechanically strummed at what wasn't there, metal frame protruding from it's ratty, fake fur like so many metallic bones…

…and the fat man with red stubble clumsily dropped to all fours, body becoming streamlined, pink and gold head now serpentine, blue eyes sad and derisive at the same time, "Run, run, fast as you can, can't catch me…" the voice of a small child trailing behind it around the length of Mike's baton that it gripped between it's teeth in a tangle of khaki colored yarn and the scent of spice and Doritos and dill pickles as it ran into the darkness on the edges of reality, leaving Raina wondering what the hell she was doing surrounded by the charred, rotting remains of manufactured childish dreams as they advanced on her, eyes glowing…

…while Circus Baby straddling the shoulders of the decaying purple bunny, laughed and laughed.


	54. Ralph

In the dark of the maze, a simple golden ring fell unheeded out of the torso of the running bear, and rolled away.

 _As for Mike, he'd walked off the stage afterwards shaking._

 _So he'd had a beer._

 _And Raina matched him._

 _And he'd had another._

 _And Raina matched him._

 _Then he ordered a Bloomin' Onion. Mostly because he'd never seen anything like it and thought it was neat, and because the beer needed company._

 _Raina helped him eat it._

 _Matching him beer for beer._

 _The Bloomin' Onion didn't last long._

 _So he'd ordered another one._

 _Followed by more beer, and you guessed it, another Bloomin' Onion._

 _And a pizza._

 _And more beer._

 _So that on the somewhat unsteady drive home, there came a deep, painful belch, like something the Titanic would have given off as it died._

 _Followed by another._

 _And another._

 _And another._

 _And… worse._

 _Worse than say, Mike taking his boots off after a long march in July._

 _Worse enough to roll down a window and bad enough to regret he'd stopped smoking at age 18 so he didn't even have a cheap lighter or so much as a kitchen match on him.  
_

 _(Hell, it was almost as bad as that time in Saudi during 'Storm he forgot and politely accepted a drink of water from a sweet little old lady so bundled up in a burqua that all he could see was her eyes. Two hours later, guts feeling like he'd swallowed a "bunker buster" bomb, Mike found himself repeatedly tearing through tent city towards the latrines followed by the yells of "Incoming! Lt. Sasquatch's makin' another bombing run!" until a medic half his size corralled him and he found himself being medivaced to a carrier out in the Gulf for dysentery and severe dehydration…_

 _...and then it hit Raina..._

 _…which led to them spending the rest of the weekend in a little back road motel with the name "Bates" on the sign, aggressively shouldering each other aside on their way to the tiny, grubby bathroom, with Raina finally ripping the bathroom waste basket out of Mike's hands and using it as a bucket, the window over the bathtub wide open to let the fug of bile, deep-fried onion, pepperoni, and cheap beer escape before somebody suffocated, which was a hell of a waste of a cheap motel room and a long weekend..._

 _Despite his shared gastric trauma, the irony of the motel name was not lost on Mike. Had they been real, Norman and his "mother" would have had to work pretty damned hard to outdo what the greasy haute cuisine of Sunnydale's best nightclub did to them so that the little East Indian man with the bald spot who worked the front desk charged them double after his wife saw the state of the bathroom the next morning._

 _Still, two days later and because the weather off of the Pacific was unusually cold and foggy, Mike, wearing the hand crocheted khaki scarf one of her grandmothers had sent him in the mail that morning, cautiously brought Raina lunch out at the airfield as a peace offering._

 _She didn't shoot him as anticipated. Instead, she called him what sounded like "a gluttonous trouble-making bastard" in what might have been Polish or maybe Arabic while he loudly reminded in her in English that she'd not exactly abstained from the grease a la carte herself. That, and he didn't know that she could burp the national anthem when all he could ever manage was the alphabet, WHICH, he grudgingly admitted, was really cool._

 _Running out of loud, rude mutual exchanges and tired of being stared at as the fog lifted, they'd settled down on a bench facing one of the runways and watched the aircraft taking off and landing as they ate, with Mike deciding that he'd be a total idiot to let a woman who not only matched him bite for bite and drink for drink but survived the hellish aftermath and was still willing to eat lunch with him, go._

 _Anyway, she'd liked how the scarf looked on him. And, well, congrats on trading his gold bars in for silver – even if it meant he was shipping out for embassy duty in January… ummmm, yeah, congrats… a real honor... yadda yadda yadda... could she have his phone number once he got there? She was thinking of getting one of those little Nokia cell phone thingies now that the price had come down... he could get one, maybe? Then theyyyyyy could... Maybe keep in touch? Butonlyifhewantedto!_

 _Later that afternoon Mike casually palmed Raina's Academy ring from her dresser, and went ahead and had the ring he'd been considering sized off of it while she frantically tore her room apart._


	55. Deus Ex Machena much?

Pain shooting up her right leg, Raina realized that the funky repurposed industrial space that passed for the Bronze was really the burned out shell of a restaurant and that Circus Baby and her purple rabbit steed weren't standing on a stage, but a charred table laughing at her.

Eyes fixed on Circus Baby, Raina tugged one-handed at the zipper of her flight suit and with the other reached in and pulled out the standard issue 9 mm Beretta she'd worn for years from its underarm holster, released the safety, backed away, and then screamed, stabbing sensation in her foot forgotten when a charred cartoon face suddenly went nose to nose with her, heat-shriveled eyeballs dangling loosely in empty steel sockets. Firing point blank, she kneed the thing in the groin before kicking it so that it staggered backwards, moronically grinning face flying apart in a burst of metal and plastic shards as headless, it came at her, blackened steel claws slashing through the tough fabric of her flight suit.

Screaming, Raina pushed the nasty thing away from her in a cascade of burnt fabric so that it staggered, claws flailing, damaged inner mechanisms sparking and squealing as it blindly tried to get at her.

"Aim for the middle." A child's voice whispered.

Wiping sweat and blood her eyes, Raina, stepped aside, aimed, and squeezed the trigger, the echoing concussion slamming up her arm and into her shoulder as the torso of what once had been a gigantic cartoon baby chicken with the remains of a "Let's eat!" bib around it's thick neck flew apart in a clatter of shattered plastic, small bones and a pair of little pink sandals followed by a soft "pop" like a camera going off as a tiny spark of light flew up like a firefly towards the collapsed ceiling of the restaurant before winking out like the ones in Mike's meadow.

The now headless body with it's blown out torso took a few tottering steps and then toppled sideways with a crash against a battered child-sized school desk, sending worn fat crayons and a dog-eared coloring sheet ghosting into the darkness which rose up from the black and white checkered floor and Circus Baby laughed even harder.

Scanning the room, which was now a bizarre mixture of kiddie restaurant and kindergarten, Raina crouched, backing away from the remains of her attacker and the thing that directed it, leaving single bloody footprints on the filthy tiles. There were other… things in the shadows.

 _Mangled, burnt, torn things. Things that smelled of carrion in the sun. Things that stank like what she'd helped fly out of Iraqi trenches, abandoned things that had wept and plead in what little English they knew for mercy, to not hurt them, grown men, still in the civilian clothing they'd been forcibly recruited in, reduced by abuse from their own leader to the weight of children, the bones of their hands and faces visible through the skin… of neglect, of starvation, of dehydration, of untreated wounds, lice, and insanity…_

Eyes wild, Beretta ready, and groping blindly behind her, Riana mentally shoved the memories away and put her back against what might have been a cracked blackboard, and blinked.

The things came out of the shadows, bringing the shadows with them, moving without moving, grinning, grasping, mechanical voices chirping through the foul air, "Come play with us!" "Party time!" and "Happy birthday!"

Blink.

They were a loose mass, tottering, hands up, empty eye sockets black in the darkness.

Blink.

Cold sweat poured down between her shoulder blades. They were maybe ten feet away, the sound of Circus Baby's giggles echoing around her, a broken music box jangling and gurgling in the background, "The Toreador March".

Blink.

Gaping, they shambled lopsidedly towards her now at arm's reach. Raina squeezed the Beretta's trigger, but it jammed so she reversed her grip on it, bringing the handle down hard on some sort of rotting bunny rabbit that giggled and whirred, catcher's mitt hands clamping down on her shoulders, digging into the flesh, making her arms go numb, pressing her into the wall. Raina screamed, and struggling, kicked it in the torso with both feet as a nasty blind mass with a bow tie and a top hat shoved against her, razor blade mouth closing on her… still struggling, Raina closed her eyes, prepared to go down fighting…

And then in a flash of light and a solid kick, there came a high-pitched male voice saying, "Oh I say, this is marvelous. I simply MUST write all of this down immediately lest I forget it all!"

"Oh God, William! Do you EVER shut up?" Exasperated, Buffy waved her glowing stake at Raina, "Hey, I thought I'd never find you – need help?"


	56. A tad more Deus ex Machina plus vodka

_Worried, oh, so very worried._

 _The very small bear, yellow, toddled through the dark and the snow, cradling the blonde Raggedy Andy doll, stepping over the simple golden ring without a glance as the Slayer kicked and whirled, first one foot and then the other solidly connecting with the remains of manufactured dreams which flew apart like rotten pumpkins struck by an axe._

 _Worry. Worry. Worry._

 _Mickey the doll relaxed into the little yellow bear, conserving its limited strength, having done everything it could to engineer what needed engineering to make happen what needed to happen. The memory of having been torn to pieces nagged like an old injury as did the knowledge that if it didn't reunite the pieces soon, everything would fly apart._

 _"Plan B._ "

 _It had called the Shaggy Dog to itself, somehow knowing that Jeremy, or what Jeremy carried inside was part of what was missing – tolerating Jeremy's indifference, his envy… his admiration? even as it struggled to manage the Cat and the Fox and their rage, no thanks to Bon Bon and her lies._

 _It had sent the whimsically shod spider. It had lured the man with white hair into the Maze, awkwardly steering the storm cloud of memories that called itself "Mike" into the outside world to do the fetching even as it mistook the man with white hair for one more lost child in need of rescuing._

 _It had sent the gun, to remind Raina of what she once had, of what she had once been, of what she still was._

 _"Plan B." Only there was no Plan B._

 _The Slayer it remembered from the time of pain and grief – the man with white hair had been excellent bait. Perhaps she could help this time. She hadn't the last time; she'd been as crazy as he – collapsing in on herself the second he'd made eye contact. This time she was stronger._

 _"Plan B." What to do! What to do!_

 _And then came Raina with the clarity and the light and the pain she brought with her from before it all fell apart. Finding her, finding all three in the dark had been a miracle. But Raina was blind, blind and sick – would she be enough to put the pieces back together?_

 _"Plan B."_

 _Snow coating it, the little yellow bear with mismatched green eyes and shabby fur paused in the blackness between atoms, adjusted it's tie and top hat with one clumsy, grubby paw, and then, the sounds of a Beretta 9 mm and feet trampling dreams fading behind it, it hugged the doll to itself…_

 _"Oh dear, Plan B."_

 _…and stepped into another part of the Maze as the Maze created itself around the little yellow bear while Circus Baby laughed, urinating on itself._

 _"Plan B. Plan B." Oh dear! Oh dea— oh... yes!_

 _Up ahead a window shone gold in the distance. Relieved, the yellow bear, Mickey in both arms, aimed for it, fake fur and yarn hair stiff with ice, Plan B had manifested itself, perhaps… If it could run to the window, and what lived behind it… before it was too late…_

 _(…because time was running out, and the window was so very, very far away for something that had never been designed to run.)_

 _"Plan B! Oh yes, Plan B!"_

"No, no!" Raina yelled, dodging the mechanically flailing hook of a pirate fox, "Not the head! The chest! The chest – rip it open!"

The headless torso of the purple bunny slammed into Buffy, impaling itself on the glowing stake. With a yell, the Slayer jerked hard, ripping the belly open in a cascade of tiny dusty bones and a popover skull that crunched underfoot as she vaulted over the remains of a merry-go-round with half-melted winged ponies on it as the lights overhead began to strobe and sizzle, "Thanks!"

"No problem!" Raina quipped as they went back to back. She swung the remains of a little school desk by its rusty legs over her head, solidly connecting with a charred cartoon chicken so that it flew backwards with an angry electronic squawk. "Didn't know you had it in ya. Do this often?"

"I flip burgers (ungh!) for a living. Beating up big bads in the dark is (argh!) just a hobby - jeepers, who the Hell did you piss off?" Buffy ducked, came up slamming the heel of her hand into the chin of a yellow bunny with one ear torn off and gaping eye sockets that sang, "I'm a little teapot." in the voice of a small child as it tried to trample her. As the thing staggered back the Slayer spun, planting her free hand on the floor, anchoring her long enough for a double mule to the chest, causing it to topple over so that she could backflip, ripping its belly open with her stake on the way past as she moved on to the next charred horror as jeering, Circus Baby turned around and disappeared with a belch, leaving the purple bunny it had been riding to finish the job.

"Oh, I say! I say!" William, now standing on the dilapidated stage, scribbled hastily in his commonplace book, the scrawny kid, now more man than the kid Raina remembered, slipped his guitar into a battered case after unplugging it from the remains of a burned out amp and carefully wiping it down with an old t-shirt. "Hey." He casually waved a hand at Buffy as he picked up the guitar case and turned to walk away, "Say "hey" to Willow for me, will you?" and disappeared through the remains of the back door.

Raina slammed the little desk down _hard_ on another animatronic, kicking it aside as it squealed and rasped, her foot pure agony, "How damned many ARE there?"

"Exactly 42!" William chortled, scribbling, "I've been keeping count!"

"William, if you're here, the least (ungh!) you (ungh!) could (argh!) do is (Haaaaaaaa!) help, dammit!" Buffy yelled, ripping another festering nastiness open like popping a boil.

"Violence is _gauche."_ William paused, bent glasses crooked on his nose, one lens cracked. "I am a poet. Poets only seek out beauty. Beauty... (Oh gracious, unhand me, you, you _THING!_ ) ...is all in life that's worth pursuing – Miss Summers, I hate to impose, but I sincerely require your assistance!"

"A little busy here; deal with Balloon Boy yourself!" Buffy hollered, launching herself from the carousel's half melted canopy.

"And you brought Wet Willie with you because?" Raina ducked giving Buffy a clear flight path at a huge shambling hulk with a deep slow-motion stuttering laugh that sounded like it came out of Satan's asshole after a night of beer and baked beans. "And tell me he's NOT your boyfriend!"

"Uh, not... hey! I didn't bring him, he brought me!" Buffy slammed against Raina's latest attacker sending it into an approaching mini-mob of children's nightmares, "And YOU followed US! (Or did I follow you?)"

"Who cares— behind you!"

"Got it!" Buffy launched herself off of Raina's attacker towards where William was struggling with what looked like a goofy little boy wearing the remains of a propeller beanie so that the laughing nightmare toppled over taking Raina with it, "I don't get it, we tear them to pieces but they just keep coming – _William, I should just let that thing rip your stupid head off and get it over with!"_

The only response Buffy got was a terrified yelp as William's pen, William's commonplace book, William and then the mechanical balloon seller attacking him tumbled off of the stage with William on the bottom, "Ooooof! Ms. Dashinsky? How do we get out of here?" Buffy gasped as she landed atop the yelping, struggling mass, "I can't do this much longer!"

Raina, ducking two flailing nightmares would have agreed, but she was too busy pistol whipping both attackers with the butt of the jammed Beretta to respond when a trap door to nowhere opened in the floor and a cracked voice in a thick Polish accent run through the filter of working class Detroit cackled to the sound of careful feet in thick orthopedic shoes climbing stairs, "Heh, is private party? Can anybody dance, no?"

"Zophia, you old whore, is no problem: I bring gun!" Came another, equally scratchy, phleghmy voice.

"Gun, _schmun!_ Is my gun, you steal! Where you find?"

"In your bed, under mattress next to vodka you no think I know about, where always keep gun!"

"You bring shells?" and then, "You bring vodka?"

"You think, I stupid? I bring both. Filthy Gurman Luger, too!"

The two voices argued, getting closer in the strobing dark as Buffy, Raina, and the unfortunate William struggled with some child's worst nightmare in a total insurance write-off of a party room until finally a third voice, not cackly, not scratchy, and very, very exasperated, cut in, "Ma! Ma-in-law! Argue later, Raina's in trouble, _AGAIN!"_


	57. Babushkas and Buckshot

Gobsmacked, Buffy paused mid-swing at a charred bear that spilled countless vicious little versions of itself at her with every move and watched in shock when a very elderly woman leaning on a Zimmer frame that she hadn't noticed before, calmly pulled down the built-in folding seat, mumbling, "All right! All right! Vas kidding, vas kidding. Nodder mess to clean up, eh?" and sat down on it as the remains of the purple bunny blink-approached her grinning with triple rows of razor sharp steel teeth. Shaking her head in it's big, black babushka topped with a huge, elaborate flower crown, the old woman in a black bedazzled Detroit Tigers sweatshirt reached into the big shopping bag dangling from the frame and calmly pulled out a sawed-off shotgun and laid it across her respectably black-skirted knees as her would-be assailant approached.

Blink.

"You gonna take all day, purple?" she grumbled, dentures clacking around the short stub of a cigar clenched in their large, perfect teeth.

Blink.

"I leave ruggalach in oven. You take all day? They burn. I get mad, waste food is biiiiiig sin, Mr. Bunny!"

Blink.

As Buffy dodged the bear's cascade of smaller selves, the old lady calmly lifted the sawed-off and with a decisive "chack chack", pointed the barrel at the approaching nightmare, and pulled both triggers.

BLAM!

The deafening double explosion reverberated in the ruins of the party room and the Zimmer frame scooted backwards a few inches with a metallic screech, leaving four clean trails on the filthy tiles.

Everyone and everything stopped, turned and stared in the jittery light.

Chack chack! The old lady serenely ejected two spent rounds. Pausing mid-reload, she looked around her with a satisfied expression, thick trifocals glittering, "Is only me. Do what you were doing!" as with a practiced move she swung the stock shut one-handedly, sending two fresh rounds into what was left of her attacker as it staggered around headlessly in circles, reducing the remaining torso to so much purple fun fur, bone meal, and titanium confetti. "Zophia! Nancy! Get lazy asses over here with Luger and leaded bat with nails in. Is work to do!"

The sparking legs of the decrepit purple bunny fell over backwards with a crash.

The fight resumed.

"Is not dirty Nazi, but close, close. Heh!" she said to nobody in particular as she broke open the sawed off and with gnarled, careful fingers, took two more shells from her apron pocket and began reloading after starting a fresh cigar.


	58. You blew it! Big time!

"No, no, no! For the fifteenth time, I do not wish to purchase one of your horrid balloons and I certainly do not wish for you to eat my eyeballs!" William swatted at the mechanical balloon seller with his commonplace book, "Miss Summers, I really hate to bother you, but could you assist me with convincing this - aaaaaaaargh, it bit me - again! In the same place!"

"I'm busy, deal!" Stake shattered, Buffy scooped up a small, charred monstrosity by the ankles without breaking stride and began using it as a club on the things that blink-approached her, jaws gaping until it fell apart with each impact. "Ms. Dashinsky, he's right! We keep killing them and they keep coming back. How the hell do we get out of this?"

Raina, who had finished off the same rotting purple bunny AGAIN, this time by beating it to pieces with it's own arm, paused gasping to wipe the sweat and blood out of her eyes, "I don't know!" The purple mess toppled sparking at her feet, "I don't know – oh shit, it's that damned greedy chicken again!"

"Eh, of course you know!" Grunted babcia Zophia, who had paused to sit down on the Zimmer frame seat to light a fresh cigar before pouring hot coffee for herself out of the big steel Thermos into it's cup lid after adding vodka. Without interrupting her coffee break she punted a little burnt bear with a mouth like a Cuisinart with one steel toed work boot, much mended support hose sagging.

"No bother me on coffee break; is in contract, Union say so!" babcia Zophia muttered around her cigar, adding, "You have job to do, Raina. Quite fucking around – eh! I SAY no bother me on goddam coffee break!" She brought the loaded tote bag down with a heavy thud on another little horror so that it's head burst. "Thank you, Stanislaus – even dead, always good husband!"

Despite grappling with the garish red fox pirate again, Buffy's eyes bulged in disbelief, "Is that?"

"Yes (argh!)," Raina drop kicked another tiny bear before attempting to pry another one that was trying to chew her leg off at the hip, "That's _dziadek_ , grandpa, Stanislaus – he was a fireman, died on the job. They were inseparable!"

"You don't mean to tell me that your grandmother just struck her assailant… with a cremation urn… full of your grandfather's ashes? How uncivilized!" William said in the middle of fending off the vendor of unwanted balloons and grievous bodily harm, "Shoo! Scat! Miss Summers, I know it's a great inconvenience, but really, a moment of your time? I really don't think I can… oh dear." William forgot his status as a gentleman and a poet as he surveyed the scarring on the cover of his commonplace book, "I have really had enough!" he snarled, throwing himself bodily at the mechanical boy, fists swinging.

"'Bout time sissy-boy got to work." grunted babcia Zophia. She took a deep swig of coffee and vodka, belched, and said after wiping her mouth off on her sleeve, "Raina, you forgot you looking for Mike."

"I was tricked, he wasn't there!" Raina managed to pry loose the thing that was eating her hip and hurl it from her, where it hit the ground and bounced back at her, teeth clashing.

"I beg to differ." William said as he and the balloon vendor rolled past, fists flailing, "It was that huge, hairy, reeking creature with the red beard wandering about like a lost child – dreadful! Surely you could do better than that!"

"What?" Buffy and Raina stared down at the grunting tangle, their own fights temporarily forgotten.

"Eh, you see what you want to see. Sometimes what you want to see not so pleasant." Grunted babcia Aleckzandra, who was using the stock of the shotgun to club a scuzzy yellow bunny that looked like it had been left in the back of the refrigerator too long, "So you don't see, see?"

"Yeah, is woman's intuition!" Cackled babcia Zophia who had folded the Zimmer frame and, dziadek Stanislaus in his urn in the tote bag over one elbow, was now using it to beat the remains of the pirate fox to pieces even as it tried to attack her, "Heh heh, you blew it big time, _zabko,_ froggie, big time!"


	59. Flippin' the Bird

"Of course I blew it!" Raina wailed, "I'm not feminine enough, I never was!"

"Geh!" Babcia Zophia waved a dismissive hand, "Raina, _zabko_ , froggie, LISTEN. To be woman more than big store bought titties from doctor, lipstick and a picture on big time magazine cover with everyone calling you heroic. To be woman is up to your elbows all the time in shit even when heart broke to million pieces. To be woman is to be Baba Jaga, witch who does impossible with NOTHING!"

Facepalming with one gnarled hand, babcia Alecksandra interrupted, "You put Mike back together, filth, shame, and all - on your own, no? Up to your elbows in shit, no? Nobody tell you how, but you know? Is Baba Jaga! Nothing more womanly than that - Eve was give chance to stay in Paradise, it not all her fault. Why no Adam say, "No thanks, apples give me gas!", eh? God needs someone to clean up after all the animals and to bake the _rugelach_ for him and angels from all that good fruit for coffee breaks so good food no go to waste. Yes? NO! She say, "Eh. I go with idiot with apple on breath. _He no last ten minutes without me!"_ Baba Jaga whisper what need doing in her ear from then on. So it was, and so it always!"

Unsurprised by their blasphemy, Raina scanned the two elderly and one thirtysomething faces framed in traditional Polish flower wedding crowns looking up at her, "And, and, Baba Jaga… "

"Is Eve's big sister, Lilith— is _all_ women!" Babcia Zophia cackled in Polish, "When they let themselves!"

"When they let themselves," echoed babcia Aleckzandra with an equally salty cackle, "We no bother stop! If we what men think women are, we no survive walking pregnant across Poland in January to English Channel because we terrified Swiss send us back. In stolen blankets and old potato sacks, our feet in rags and straw, we hide in snow when cars come, live from what we steal– Baba Jaga let us survive giving birth in hog pen under haystack. We carry newborns through the snow tied between our breasts with rags so they no freeze to death!"

Babcia Aleckzandra interrupted babcia Zophia, "Baba Jaga gave us strength to lie on our backs in German officer's brothel in Warsaw while Ghetto burn – Baba Jaga gave us strength to slip out after and pass German secrets to Polish Resistance! Baba Jaga gave us strength to flee when our pregnancies showed and we were to be sent to Germany to give birth among enemies!"

"You never told me!" Raina exclaimed back at them in Polish.

"Eh, you never ask." Babcia Aleckzandra shrugged as she handed Raina the little green marble mortar and pestle she'd always kept in her tiny kitchen in Detroit, "Is why best friend and worst enemy, the bitch! got no toes and only ten fingers between us. Now shut up - solve problem!"

"With _this?"_

Both babcias and Raina's mother gave her a disgusted look that lasted 10,000 years, "Holy fuck, _dziecko_! Child!" Babcia Zophia finally exclaimed in English, shaking a gnarled, shortened forefinger under Raina's nose. "Baba Jaga show you how to pound your man back into shape when he fall apart in the darkness, no? In bread trough as big as world, no? What you problem now?"

Raina's mother shouldered babcia Aleckzandra aside and put her hands on Raina's shoulders, pulling them nose to nose as the animatronics bore down on them again in the now burning stage set that had once been the Bronze, "Listen to your babcias! Pound out a solution to this babygirl — we buy you time, it's what Baba Jaga does!"

"Mom?" Raina exclaimed, stunned, because the thirtysomething in spite of her traditional attire was familiar: the face that stared down at her from a wedding portrait wherever dad was stationed her entire childhood was unmistakable.

"Baba Jaga showed me how to raise six unruly sons and their even more unruly father on a next to nothing Navy paycheck. Baba Jaga showed me how to stand upright when I was told before you were born that he'd been shot down over Viet Nam and they couldn't find him. Baba Jaga showed me how to dance three days later when I was told they'd found him and that he was all right and coming home. Baba Jaga gave me strength to put things in order before the cancer in my breasts killed me so that you hammer-headed father had the strength to raise you and your six hammer-headed brothers."

Babcia Aleckzandra added loudly, "Listen to Baba Jaga – if you hadn't already, would you have been a Navy chopper pilot when everybody said girls shouldn't? You stink as knitter, but you good pilot. You deserved a good man, who understood you, _feh,_ even if he was a great big filthy kraut who couldn't make us grandchildren because he was stupid!"

Babcia Zophia rolled her eyes, disgust on her hawk's face, "If things as you wished, Baba Jaga would have shown you the way around! So put goddamned pestle on ground and remember the stories we told you – you're Vasalisa! Listen to Baba Jaga: make something of nothing in the middle of danger, make possibility out of impossibility – if do, we take care of the rest!"

Raina took a deep breath and knelt, putting the mortar on the black and white checked floor as the animatronics lumbered closer, claws out, teeth glittering in the stage lights of the bad copy of the Bronze, "Whatever you're going to do," Buffy said as she roundhouse kicked the moldy looking yellow rabbit in the face, blood running into her eyes, "Do it now!"

Backs to her, the three older women stepped back in a wave of coral and amber beads, high flower crowns, embroidered sleeves and bright red floral skirts, surrounding her on all three sides, arms spread protectively, laughing, cackling with glee, yelling Polish insults at their attackers, flipping the bird, "Remember," her mother giggled, "Baba Jaga is what women are. Not what men wish them to be!"

So, Raina raised the pestle and slammed it down in the cup of the mortar as hard as she could without thinking about it.

There was a crash like thunder.

The mortar went from teacup size to dishpan, and her ancestresses stepped forward, facing down their attackers.

Raina brought the mortar down a second time.

The impact nearly deafened her as the dishpan-sized mortar suddenly became as big as a wading pool.

The nightmares closed in on the women protecting her, Buffy dragging a blubbering William behind her ducking under babcia Zophia's raised arms as the old lady brought a large willow besom down on the head of the pirate fox, "What the hell are you doing?" Buffy screamed, "Run, just run!"

Raina grinned up at the Slayer, saying in English, "Don't worry. I got this. Get in!"

Buffy stared at Raina in disbelief. The outer circle was now fending off the animatronics with canes, brooms, a bread bowl, the remains of the shotgun, Stanislaus, and was that a ridiculously old pistol with a rusty barrel one of them was brandishing? "What? We need to run!"

"Get in, I got this!" Raina stood on tiptoe, bent over the lip of the mortar, and brought the pestle down a third time.

The black and white tiled floor shook, cracking out in all directions around them. Overhead, the ceiling broke open in a shower of broken plaster as the mortar doubled in size. Gripping the pestle, which was now bigger than a canoe paddle, Raina vaulted into the stone hollow and held down her free hand, "Have a little faith!"

"Whatever!" Coughing on the white clouds of dust, Buffy slung the now limp William ahead of her over the green stone lip of the mortar as it began to rise, and grabbed Raina's hand.

Kneeling, Raina quickly pulled the Slayer over the side by the seat of her yoga pants. Adjusting her flight helmet and then slipping on her flying gloves, Raina calmly worked her fingers into the tips as the bowl hovered just over the struggling mass of fierce old ladies and homicidal kiddie entertainment. Standing, she picked up the green stone pestle, which was now the length of a helicopter rotor, hefted it thoughtfully, before effortlessly raising it over her head where it began to spin.

Panting, Buffy looked down over the side, "Shouldn't we help them? I mean, the old ladies?"

"Not old ladies, _tigers!_ " Raina laughed and the pestle began to whirl faster and faster, the hovering mortar at first going forward at an angle, brushing the tops of the heads of their attackers, "Hang on, this is gonna be a bumpy ride!" she exclaimed while gaining control, the improvised gyro now rising faster and faster, leveling out and shooting forward, the pestle rotor whirring overhead, leaving three joyfully fierce Baba Jagas to tear the hell out of Circus Baby's toys as Raina and Buffy lumbered through the dark in their impossibility, following a trail of khaki yarn through the darkness, hot on the heels of the gingerbread man.


	60. Snirt

_In the Maze, there are rooms._

 _And they are in the Maze without being in the Maze._

 _And the occupants are sane._

 _And the occupants see all too clearly._

 _Because in true death, things are what they are, no matter what you want them to be._

 _Because true death for some, is a sort of eternal holding pattern once they find a hiding place._

 _Because in the Maze, the longer one wanders the twists and turns, the less one is one's self, dissolving at the edges until one is a howling cloud of memories slowly dissipating as one mindlessly repeats one's actions over and over again, which is exactly the nature of nightmare: insanity._

The cat and the fox ran ahead of the bear, while the part of the bear that ran, found itself running over a river and through the woods as a faint light grew up ahead.

And because it had been running for hours, when the light turned out to be a single yellow porch light on a tiny porch on a tiny house that seemed made up of many houses, the bear forgot what it was, whatever _that_ had been, and shouldered itself through the tiny door (for it was a very large bear and dimly remembered in its cloudy way that this was always how it had been, too big in a land of too small) in a trail of snirt (dirty ice and snow) across the worn but clean carpet of the tiny parlor it found itself in even as the random patchwork of a house slowly rose, shook itself, and then ambled away into the darkness of the Maze on gigantic chicken feet.


	61. The Bearded Hag

The bear, in death as in life, pulled itself in, trying not to break whatever it's large body came into contact with, but not without tipping over a little table covered with tchotkes that little old ladies who like to dust adore.

It made a moaning sound, freezing in place, painted eyelids shut tight over painted eyes in embarrassment, intending to stay that way forever, to not bring attention to itself.

Too late, there was a cackle.

The bear cautiously opened one painted eye and then the other, easing backwards onto it's huge butt on the now soaked and dirty carpet as it did so, waiting to be scolded as it became less and less of a pink and gold polar bear and more and more a highly contrite, clumsily built toy.

Before it sat three old ladies wearing black babushkas, sensible shoes, and gaudy, bedazzled football jerseys.

One of them had a beard.

In hot rollers.

Anyway, the beard wearer, obviously a Chicago Bears fan, rasped, "Is big game night." He/she paused to cough a loud, meaty cough, before grumbling. "Youse makes a better door than window. Outta the way, fatty." while pointing a crochet hook off to one side.

There was a yell and then a crash from another room that rattled the jumble of framed photos, theater posters, and children's drawings that hung from it as if somebody had thrown something heavy against the wall, followed by a woman's voice saying, "That's it! That's it! Let your feelings out!"

The bear's eyes widened, startled.

"Ahhhh, son-of-a bitch! That's the last time I rents to family!" Exclaimed the owner of the beard, which was well on its way to silky, easily managed waves. Shaking his/her head, he/she cackled, adding in the general direction of the bear, "Anyways, whazza matter, boychik? Never seed a beard before, _nu?_ Now, move yeh fat ass OVER. You're BLOCKIN' the BIG GAME!"

Obediently shifting to one side, the bear made another low moaning sound, shaking it's disproportionate head with it's little top hat, rocking back and forth unsteadily, indicating (perhaps) that no, not with hot rollers and were those bobby pins? He, it, had once, after all, _perhaps_ been the grandson of a beautician. Rollers and bobby pins belonged on women's heads, not… men's? Chins?

…maybe?

"Eh, put sock in it, Inelda!" groused one of the other little old ladies, fiercely crocheting away at something that must have been putting up quite a fight judging by the ferocity with which she was stabbing at it with the hook. "Leave poor boy alone – or we throw you the Hell out. No more fresh ruggalach and pretty little glass of tea with vodka for you, Mr. Bigshot Landlord, _tak?"_

 _"Tak!"_ grumbled the other little old lady, shifting the whatever-it-was she was working on around in her lap, gnarled hands busy. "Zophia, you sure fat boy here is really grandson-in-law and not some nut wander in off street to murder us in beds with hammer, _tak?_ (Ehhhhhhhh! I forget, is not Raina. Speak English speak English - boy not know what we say!) ( _Aaaaaaahemmmmmm)_ YES!"

"Aleckszandra!" Zophia scolded, "We settle hash of those things an hour ago, in tacky tavern. They no bother us, _tak?"_

" _Zak…_ in English, in English! Fuck _no!"_ exclaimed Aleckszandra, "Nasty purple rabbit thing no breed after I finish with it, _ha!"_

"Ha!" turned into a rusty cackle that turned into a long, loud wheezing, rattling hacking cough. Inelda passed her a tissue and a squashed box of Luden's Wild Cherry Cough Drops. Aleckszandra waved him, her, it? off, saying, "No, no, you old whore, hard stuff!: Halls and vodka!"

Trying to follow English as learned via Detroit assembly lines, street corners, and later on their large mob of children's _Dick and Jane_ readers with its fuzzy mind, the bear gave up and blank-eyed, fell over sideways with a heavy thud that made the surrounding tchotchkes and the children's drawings, theater posters and family pictures on the walls of the little room quiver as the prickly mix of languages and casual obscenities washed over it with the big game on the huge old-fashioned cabinet T.V. as the bassline. To Raina, who had once tried in vain to teach the long dead Mike a few simple Polish phrases in the hopes that he'd eventually meet one of the most beloved parts of her family, this constant stream of kvetching was the sound of home.

 _CRASH!_

 _Charlie looked up from making repairs on Bellora. The big, inconvenient bear that occasionally tried to kill her, or at least scare the shit out of her, fell heavily over sideways on the greasy black and white tiled floor of her workshop at the back of Circus Baby's, still plugged into the charging unit._

 _"Fuck, it's not on fire. I'll deal with it later." She said dismissively, and got back to repairing the simple gyroscope that kept Bellora the Ballerina from toppling over and crushing the rugrats whose bourgeois parents kept her business going with their obscenely large disposable incomes._


	62. The Hiding Place

"Eh?" Aleckszandra, interrupted herself in mid-argument, "Is finished. Every boy needs teddy, no?" With a grunting groan, she stood up, slowly unfolding so that everything fell into place. Leaning heavily on her cane, she hobbled over to where the bear lay blank-eyed, "Yo! Fatso!" she poked at the huge mound of plastic and ratty fur with her cane, "Is yours. You lose in dark. It come to us all "boo hoo". We stitch new eyes on. Now they same. And clothes… Teddy not so shabby now, no?"

The bear cautiously opened one plastic eye. With one mangled paw, it took the shabby yellow teddy bear in the newly crocheted dark blue coat, lighter blue trousers with a red stripe down the sides, and white cap with black brim from her truncated hands, before folding in and around it in a huge ball on the stained carpet.

"You velcome!" Aleckzandra rolled her eyes behind their thick trifocals and their severe black frames, "You maybe born in barn? You fit right in: not only one in crazy family born in barn!"

"Aleckszandra," Zophia scolded as she half rose with a grunt, "Be nice!"

"Go to hell, old whore!" Aleckszandra, flapped one hand dismissively as she landed heavily in the recliner she'd just vacated before picking up a fresh skein of yarn and a crochet hook. She squinted one-eyed down it like a rifle barrel, "Is work to be done."

(Thud, "Bitch! You let Uncle Bill at me! I was 12. I didn't know any better and it HURT! Then, then you made me kill the baby after you got done telling me abortion was a sin!")

"Eh, tsk tsk, family fight, even when dead!" Clicking her tongue, Aleckzandra looked at the wall with it's mixture of bare lathe and plaster, shabby wallpaper, and occasionally rattling pictures.

("That's right, let it out! Honesty is good!" soothed the woman's voice through the patchwork wall.)

Loudly exhaling, babcia Zophia leaned forward in her easy chair, booting the bear's big behind with one sensibly shod foot, "Here! Take better care of toys. Head almost ripped off!"

("It was OUR fault, you little tramp! My older brother is a deacon of the church – like Eve with the apple, we tempted him with our female bodies!")

("Slut!" Crash!)

(Bang! Bang! Bang! "Worthless junkie!")

("McRib!" a fourth voice whined. "Kentucky Fried!")

("Shut up, you cow!" Chorused two of the voices, "Don't you ever stop eating?")

("(Sheesh!) That's right, that's right, honesty is the best policy here." Soothed a fourth voice that sounded sort of like Raina. "Let it out… let it _all_ out…")

(Bang! "Liar, I never… _and then…you let him at my son after dad had his stroke and you couldn't take care of both!_ Only Mickey beat up the balding little turd when he tried pulling the same shit – after that, the rest of the family was AFRAID of Mickey! BITCH, YOUR GRANDSON wound up in goddam foster care because you wouldn't admit the TRUTH!" (Another whine of "Are you going to eat that Cheez-Whiz? Why the hell did you let those people adopt me? They wanted me to lose weight, and _DO_ something with my life!")

"Oh Nancy! Is waste of time, those three." Aleckszandra whispered uncomfortably as she held out to the bear what she'd been working on. Eyes closed, she shook her head, adding once the screaming subsided, "Always the fighting, always the fighting, old grief, no forgiveness… no end… is price of Maze when stay in too tong. Still, she tries, she tries!"

The bear uncurled just enough to snatch the blonde Raggedy Andy with it's fresh buzzcut and new, crocheted dress uniform before quickly rolling back into the big featureless ball of half-remembered self that silently rocked on the now filthy carpet.

Pushing back his sleeves, Inelda Schnelz rose to his full six seven, now in a fine black Fedora and black wool coat, and began polishing his rhinestone Harlequin glasses, the faded numbers tattooed on his forearm stark in the lamplight, "We did the little ones. What's it gonna take to fix the big lump of self-pity dirtying my good rug to help Raina not be so dense this time _, nu?"_

Aleckszandra opened her mouth to add something but abruptly shut it when the sound of footsteps over head filled the sudden silence – even the television seemed to know to turn itself down. She put the remains of one forefinger over her lips, violently shaking her head at the bear, who looked upwards, puzzled.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

Inelda closed his/her eyes, hands over mouth, beard suddenly dripping with sweat.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

The footsteps grew louder, the tapping more insistent, as if somebody overhead was looking for a hidden space. The room next door was unusually quiet, except for a faint whimpering noise, quickly stifled.

Tap.

Tap.

Tap.

The footsteps died away and the occupants of the room, including the bear and the television, relaxed. "Whew," babcia Aleckszandra said after a long, shuddering breath while polishing her thick trifocals with an unusually dainty hankie that generally lived in her cleavage, "It didn't find our hiding place. This time."

Everyone sat collecting themselves until: "Eh, is cheap rug. A lotta goddam yarn, is "nu"!" Shaking her head while lighting her own fresh cigar, Zophia tugged the multicolored scrap afghan off of the back of her easy chair, pulled out a pair of scissors, and began unraveling it. "After this? Big game on teevee with apple ruggalach fresh from oven and coffee and vodka, and little glass of tea for great big tall Miss Know-It-All-Landlord-Smarty-Pants here with stinky cigar ashes all over big kosher Santa beard all full of curlers and glitter, ha!"

(Crash. Tinkle. "Mom! Shut up and listen to me for once in your goddamed life! Why the Hell do you think I ran away? Uncle Bill wouldn't leave me alone, even after the abortion. When that varsity football player from Southeast Missouri University knocked me up at 14, I stole his wallet and used the money to get to St. Louis because I had nowhere to go... and _it's all your fault!)_


	63. Uncle Inelda and Other Painful Truths

The bear dissolved into a swirling cloud of faces, memories, images, huddling in on itself.

(You two bitches ate all the Oreos. My blood sugar will go down and I'll diiieeeeeeeee!" Two voices responded in chorus, "Shut up, 'Lissa, we're fighting here!" followed by a moan of, "Oh God, what have I got myself into? I never finished my degree in psychology!)

"Eh, boychik. C'mere, wanna cookie? Swiped the bag right out from under those two _yenta's_ noses when they argued in the kitchen over who ate the kielbasa they were saving for after Lent, heh-heh-heh." Though dead, Inelda still enjoyed letting his/her inborn malicious glee out for a romp. "Hell, had they been thinking, they would have known who snuck out of the spare bedroom, so what if locked? Heh-heh-heh – was someone fat, but not me!"

A large human hand, chopped off at the knuckles, cautiously shaped itself out of the swirling, shapeless mass that had once been the bear, and by extension, Mike, and cautiously accepted it.

"Not tzimmies, but good." Inelda Schnelz wheedled, "It came the way from Poland where only the best cookies are made. Feh to German cookies! – who do you think they learned how to bake from?"

A second, then a third cookie was accepted and the following blast of spices temporarily overcame the reek of Doritos and dill pickles that the bear had brought with it. "Good enough," Inelda Schnelz said mentally, "Good enough – the damned thing may be one big kettle of _meshugginah_ , but it's settling down; maybe enough to listen."

The hand emerged again. Inelda put down his/her crochet hook, glanced over at the two babcias furiously crocheting away at the salvaged yarn as if the Devil himself was standing behind them using his barbed tail for a whip, and slipped the crumpled paper bag back out from under his/her easy chair and dropped another ginger spice cookie into the big dumb schmuck's paw… hand… eh, whatever. "So, you're sane enough to want more. _Mazel tov_." Inelda said sarcastically.

The hand froze, still holding the cookie.

Inelda rolled his/her eyes in frustration, "No, no, _schmendrik_ , you're not in trouble. It's Yiddish for "congratulations" – what do they teach kids in school these days? As in "Mazel tov, you've settled down enough to ask for another cookie and maybe listen for once!""

The mass on Inelda's rug coalesced into a big clumsily built toy curled upon itself, completely blocking the television, which Inelda accepted philosophically: seeing as his beloved Chicago Bears were getting a royal ass kicking, it was either watch Chicago lose to Detroit, or watch a fake bear's ass flicker in and out of focus.

"Feh. Bear's ass wins. This time." Bulldog jaw splitting in a wicked grin, Inelda, slipped his/her illicit nosh back under his/her easy chair with a glance at his/her two third cousins who were also his/her second and fifth cousins as well as possibly his/her …nieces? Death is a small world, and it was an even smaller village back in the Old Country, with large families, with their fair share of rebels, one of them being Inelda's mother – or was this just the story trying to force them to fit? "Y'know." Inelda made a broad gesture with his/her crochet hook, "This, THIS, is all nothing but memories."

The mass solidified. The flickering face that had once been Mickey/Michael stared out at him, foggily interested.

"Ah ha! I've got its attention. I need to move fast before that nasty little _meeskait_ , that _ferschtinker_ , Circus Baby, finds this safe place and leaves us with _bupkis!"_ The big drag queen thought. "He's pretty far gone, the big _putz_. But if I can keep him together long enough, we can get everyone who counts out of this in one piece."

"This. PLACE." Inelda rasped aloud, hook working busily, "Is nothing but memories. I am a memory. They are memories. The train wreck in the other room is nothing BUT memories – memories pulled from everyone's heads by Circus Baby as they came in, hoping to use them against you, against Raina, against the _luftmensch_ that writes everything down who thinks he's fooling everyone, even the little girl with the big sharp stick and bigger issues, _nu?"_

Mickey, who had settled down in the shape of a small boy wearing a blue onesie hugging a rag doll and a yellow teddy bear, stared up at him, huge blue eyes intense.

"Take your half-sister (please, she is ruining the furniture with all those crumbs!)." The bear turned boy sat up alertly, face radiant, "Yeah, HALF-sister, a year younger than you – Raina's bubbes think those two _vilda chaya_ , horrible brats pretending to be cats and foxes maybe brought her in." At this, two lumps of fur raised their heads where they were napping on the top of the big television and stared at Inelda and Michael before going back to sleep. Inelda snorted, gesturing at the wall, "Your mother dumped HER off at birth on a couple who moved to California. Then she had those two _nudniks_ now sleeping on my T.V., getting hair all over the place when not sharpening claws on my couch – to them all she is, is a loud, angry voice that yells and hits when it isn't eating. Congratulations, you're an uncle _, schlmiel!"_

The boy beamed, not understanding that Inelda was insulting him.

Almost but not quite feeling bad about it, Inelda added with a sigh to sort of ease his/her prickly conscience, "I get it, I get it. It's nice to know you aren't alone, that the Universe or whatever sent you those two even if they once tore off your schlong and threw it in your face so now you carry it around like a stick not knowing what to do with it, (belch, eh, too many cookies)… _mazel tov_ for that, too." Inelda paused, pulling Mike's baton out from under Mike and studying it while staring down at the boy. He/she mumbled something under his breath and suddenly broke off the last twelve inches of the black length, tossing it into the waste basket before saying, "Don't bother with your half sister, though. She's one big _ongepotcket_." before picking up his/her crochet hook, and staring at it as if wondering where it had come from.

(Bang! Bang! Rattlerattlerattle…)

"Anyways," He/she started a fresh row, "We meet each other, blundering around in the dark, a big mess, - we build this hiding place, memories building memories out of memories, hiding from Circus Baby. We find others, your mother, your bubbe, fighting, always fighting, your half-sister, kvetching, always kvetching – three angry _shiksas_ – for peace, we lock them in the memory of another room. Raina's mother? HA! She tries to fix them. Good luck there!"

There was a distant crash as if somebody had pulled a dish hutch over. Inelda glanced over in that direction with a look of nasty satisfaction, "Like the gingham dog and the calico cat – tear each other up just because. They have been in the Maze too long, like you – you brought them with you. Like you, they are falling apart, same fight over and over again – eternal meshugginah until nothing left!" Chewing nervously on his cigar, Inelda crocheted furiously, occasionally glancing down at the boy who was holding out his hand for another cookie.

"Eh, _pupik_ , angry cloud of rage, fate worse than death …ohhhh…. Feh! !f it keeps you still and listening to this old _altarkocker_ of a _faygala_ long enough to make sense, have the whole damned bag. I can always remember another!" Grumbling, Inelda paused mid-stitch and passed the bag to the boy, who climbed onto Inelda's lap and began happily gobbling down the contents with both hands after politely offering one to the teddy bear and then the rag doll in their uniforms while showering Inelda with crumbs. "Thank you, would be nice, nu?"

The boy froze mid swallow, looking distressed. Slowly one small, flickering hand rose to his chest and with a sad look on his face, Mickey tapped the imbedded speaker grille that blossomed there, emitting slow, silent static and then tapped Ineldda's heavily lipsticked mouth.

Back as a cross-dressing yenta, Inelda slapped his/her forehead, " _Oy gevalt!_ I forgot! _Ess! Ess!_ (Eat! Eat!)"

(More screams, more insults and another crash from the room next door followed by a demand for Funyons and Dr. Thunder plus a double latte grande with extra caramel and whipped cream.) Raina's two babcias looked up, tsk tsking and then resumed their frantic team crocheting of a really large pair of pants.)

Inelda, reconciled to having a large, heavy child in a blue onesie camping out on his/her lap sleepily eating cookies, continued: "If I'm only the memory of a nasty little _shaygetz_ who can't put in a good night's work without pulling my movie theater down around his head and setting it on fire for minimum wage, why do I remember your grandfather as a young man driving an Army truck somewhere in Europe, picking me up as I walk from DP camp to DP camp looking for my beloved Herman? (Is this why am I so old and fat? Why Tevye and my father all rolled up in one? Why not Fred Astaire? Ronald Coleman? Ginger Rogers?) I remember him, little short guy, ears sticking out, stopping, saying, "Hop in!""

"I jump for joy because he is Yankee, and I was born in Chicago but trapped in Germany during the Holocaust. Then I see his name on his shirt, "Schmidt"? Frightened, I pull away and say to myself, "No, Inelda, no! He is Yankee, but his name is German!" The beatings, the hunger, the humiliation come back, but he grins at me with your grin and says, "Hey, y'all, it's a shame to have to eat this big ol' sandwich all by myself. Help me eat it on your way to the next DP camp if that's where you wanna go. Hope you like ham!"

Inelda laughed, "Who cares if ham is not kosher? Kosher was history to me by then! I ride and share. Surprise surprise, after long ride with your grandfather, I see Herman, all skin and bones in DP camp hospital with others from Auschwitz! How do I remember this if I am but a memory myself? Maybe I help you because of this? If it really happened?" Inelda paused, an ugly little blue rabbit puppet pressed to his/her eyes. "Is it because you need to hear this, maybe?

The boy looked up at Inelda in mid bite with a slow, puzzled grin. Loudly blowing his/her nose into the shabby blue puppet before dropping it into a nearby waste basket, Inelda gathered him/herself: "Raina's mother? She is a picture on some wall and a voice in the night; so you never see her clearly. Like your mother – a picture hidden in your wallet, a face in a coffin. She is a memory we found crying in the dark, now the three of them? Fighting, always fighting in the other room!"

A loud burst of static came from the boy, interrupting Inelda, "Quiet _boychik_ , quiet. Let an old _faygala_ enjoy her stories, will you? Your father? Your mother told me his name is Michael Jablonski. He played football for a university – he didn't know your mother was fourteen, she was so tall. After big fun, she stole his wallet and ran away. When you were eleven, she learns he owns Jablonski Used Cars, a real big shot in St. Louis, and that he was running for Governor, and that maybe if he knew about you, he would maybe take care of you like she couldn't. So she goes to his office and he realizes that if it got out he once knocked up a fourteen year old and that the baby survived, poof! There go his big plans. He sees to it her dealer gives her uncut…"

Another loud, wordless, burst of static from the boy, "Shhhhh, _boychik_ , shhhhh! Life is hard and often bitter, but you survived – I did."

(Crash!)

"Only you, YOU, always give up too easy, run away – like child when you should be a man. Things go bad? Like when people chose Chinese baby over you? You run away! You hurt your back doing the right thing, am I right? Help people on that bus when the drunk of a driver turns it over, am I right? Kick you out of Marines, fine tall mensch you were, broke Raina's heart when she couldn't find you - because you, you big dummy, you ran away – (Did you know she came looking for you? No? _Schmuck!_ ) Broke her heart because you forgot how she took care of you when you got punched in the schnozz when boxing. Blood everywhere, won't stop. You say, "I'm ok." She says, "No, you're not ok. Get in the car, I'm taking you to the base emergency room!"

Inelda continued mercilessly, "Nooooooo, Instead you wind up in gutter because you run away without even seeing what she wanted, right?" After funny uncle, you run away, saying, "If I keep myself to myself, be unpleasant to be around, smell bad, let my hair and beard go wild like barnyard animal, I won't get hurt, people won't try things, like funny uncle did – so when they clean you up for Corps, even you say, "Hey, that's some guy in the mirror! Maybe worth something after all, worth more than damned Sasquatch!"

The boy in the blue onesie winced, looking away. Inelda cuffed him gently, "Eh, look at me, look at me, _pupik_. I know, truth hurts, doesn't it? I was Inelda "Smells" the biggest, fattest girl in school – my family jewels were trapped inside my body, so when I hit puberty? Eh, they called me "Gorilla My Dreams" because a real girl isn't supposed to be hairy like man no thanks to bris of a lifetime! In concentration camp, I get over it because there are things in life worse than not being what people think you should be!"

The boy cautiously nodded.

"Let me guess, you stand outside the door of that club letting rich _nudniks_ and their _shicksas_ in and out – some things never change. It hurts to stand. Still you do your job, right? Say, one night a man hands you a card, saying, "Come to this address, bring your uniform, bring your medals, I'll make it worth your time, right?" And you think, "Hey, make a little money on the side, maybe get out of this chickenshit job, get an education, be somebody after all." So like a big dummy you go. They want you to put on your uniform and do for money what is done in private in front of a camera with your medals and your hat, maybe with other men or maybe animal and you're not made that way? Eh? Eh?"

Rocking, the small boy hunched in on himself, hands almost but not quite covering his ears. Inelda continued mercilessly, "Bet you felt, "Is this all I am good for? Am I no better than mama who died in a ditch? Is this all I'm worth? What have I done with my life?"

("Bitch!" "Slut!" "McDonald's!" came from the other room. Distracted, the boy's eyes shifted towards the wall. The one of Mike and Raina at Big Sur fell to the ground, the glass shattering.)

"Look at me. No, Mickey, look at me." Inelda took the boys face between his gnarled hands, "Only you walked away, maybe told them "Go to hell!", maybe broke a few lights, punched a hole in wall - and didn't take the money. Instead you went back to your shitpile apartment, trampling your uniforms underfoot as you got drunk, maybe high, took pills, ate everything you could find, right? So again, you were a mess, am I right? So when you wake up a few months later, you're a fat, sorry pile of shit about to lose what job you had that nobody wants that Raina didn't recognize right in front of her."

Eyes streaming, the boy nodded, face trapped in the vise of flesh and bone.

(Crash, bang, "Slut!")

Distracted again, the boy's distant eyes slid towards the other room and the battle that raged there.

"Not your fight. Ignore it unless you want to wind up like them!" Inelda scolded, reaching one-handedly for the Big Sur picture, which had landed beside his/her easy chair to the sound of breaking glass and forced Mickey to look at it. The boy's reluctant eyes flicked between it and him/her, regaining their focus. ("Whew, that was close!" Inelda thought, "Seeing this might pull him together enough for the next test so maybe we can end this shitshow once and for all!")

"So, you let life win – hah?" Inelda rasped, "But you have a chance to make it right." He/she rolled his eyes in frustration as the boy's distracted eyes slid towards the wall and the battle behind it. Inelda shoved the picture down the side of the chair in frustration, once more taking Mickey's face between his/her large, arthritic hands, saying loudly: "Your mother? The one screaming behind the wall at your bubbe? Your half sister? She told me her pimp left her for dead beside the Interstate, naked and pregnant that cold January morning - HA! Is just as well, Jablonski's in Leavenworth now. You were a cop once, you understand: he was so sharp a businessman he cut himself with not so nice deals: no surprise there! What would an honest seller of used cars who speaks for all good people know about uncut heroin? What is one little whore asking for a bit of money?"

Mickey stared up at Inelda open-mouthed until with a nervous laugh he/she released him to pick up his/her crochet, the two of them lost in thought, Inelda's fingers busy with hook and yarn until with a harsh laugh he/she said to him/herself, "No shame. No shame, heh, no shame – sometimes whore is only way to survive when no other choice comes! When the doctor made me a girl when I was really a boy because they couldn't tell so that instead of a Bat Mitzvah, I got a razor and shaving kit with orders to never tell a soul about what got cut off and big fat Inelda "Smells" got a hairy chest to go with her big hairy feet for her birthday? Was not my fault! Is not yours! Is what you do with what you have that counts! Anyway, how does a memory of a memory remember such things? Anyway, why should we help you? You tell me!"

"Heh-heh, old fart! Stop chitter-chatter and get working!" Aleckzandra cackled, weaving in an end, "Is almost showtime. We no want grandson-in-law to go on stage naked, yes?"


	64. Bon Bon

_The cat and the fox had created the bear – something Charlie had never quite been able to duplicate, the closest for her being Bellora the Ballerina._

 _And Bon Bon._

 _Speaking of Bon Bon, Circus Baby had found it easy to manipulate – telling it that Raina would ruin everything, that the cat, and the fox, and the dog, and the bear would leave Bon Bon alone in the dark._

 _Tubby, booger eatin' little Bon Bon with the chewed nails and the speech impediment that got her teased, whom Charlie drowned in a toilet after luring her away from her birthday party with promises of fresh baked cookies before soaking the cheap hand puppet that she now possessed in her blood, had been terrified of the dark._

 _And still was._

 _Mike, or rather the bear, let Bon Bon live in his pocket, and supplied cookies._

 _Bon Bon loved cookies almost as much as being alone at night terrified her._

 _The bear hadn't minded her mush-mouthedness; teaching her how to use the voices of others, even if she didn't understand half the words sometimes._

 _The dog was weird, but useful, carrying Bon Bon when the bear forgot about her._

 _Which these days, was often._

 _The cat and the fox tolerated her._

 _They too, were useful. After all, they, along with a second fox who once upon a time abandoned them all, created Bon Bon's favorite toy– chasing the man he once was through the building, ignoring his screams as laughing, they tore him apart to the snapping of bones before stuffing what was left into the first thing that fit because it was funny._

 _Mike was a LOT of fun once he woke up the next night, teaching them all new games, showing them how to kill more efficiently, drawing out the chase, prolonging the fun._

 _He'd changed, after a while, but that was all right, teaching them new games that distracted everyone, letting Circus Baby do whatever it wanted to him as long as it left the others alone._

 _After play time, they'd all curl up in the dark on top of the bear so that nobody was alone._

 _Yes, the cat and the fox had been easy – all it had taken was one little whisper in their ears from Bon Bon._

 _That Raina would take Mike, the bear, away from them._

 _And leave them alone once more._

 _In the dark._

 _Forever._


	65. Satisfaction Guranteed

Dozing against the cold side of the mortar in the whistling dark as the pestle turned propeller whirled overhead, Buffy shifted only to find herself in the remains of the Bronze again. Only instead of the mess they'd left behind, a mingling of quirky local bar with deliberately eclectic décor and burned-out kiddie palace and sugar distribution center, it really was the Bronze.

Or part of it.

After hours?

…maybe?

A large man knelt on the little stage, his back to her, broad shoulders in their black painted on t-shirt slightly hunched in the harsh light of a single overhead spotlight, the bandanna that covered his head a brief flash of red as he adjusted an amp after plugging in a beat-up looking bass.

There was a pop, the squeal of feedback, a harsh crackling and then a flat, electric hum. Mike rose, turning towards her, looking down at her, fingers idly working a fretless bass guitar where seconds earlier there had been a dilapidated toy bear strumming at a stringless guitar that wasn't even plugged in.

Black tears slowly coursing from empty eye sockets, Mike grinned lazily down at her, long fingers flexing, steel teeth glinting, black gaps where his canines should have been, jagged tattooed lines harsh where they circled his muscular forearms. Buffy stepped back, reaching behind her for the stake she usually kept in the waistband of her yoga pants, fingers coming up empty.

Sweating, she side-eyed for a weapon, only to realize that the two of them were standing in black infinity, shadows cascading down Mike's face, spilling down his body, rolling across the filthy, blood-stained black and white tiled floor towards her like black water.

There was a hissing crackle that resolved itself into a guitar riffing lonely in the darkness with an excruciating electronic squeal.

"1. 2. 3. 4." One big combat-booted foot heavily stamped the time. The spotlight shifted so that it was behind Mike, turning him into a black outline that slightly lunged at her as he sang down at her, left hand working the fretted neck. Only there were words in between the words of an old song that Buffy barely remembered, "The Business" or maybe "The Firm", "Satisfaction Guaranteed"— you know, some sort of borrrrrrr-ing geezer rock band that her dad would have liked, or what-EVER.

(At the time dad'd bothered with Buffy and Dawnie, if it wasn't New Kids on the Block or some other over-marketed manicured boy band carefully staffed with superficially dangerous or sensitive performers deliberately cast to titillate young teenage girls without frightening them, it hadn't interested her…)

 _…mystery surrounds me, and I wonder where I'm going…_

("Buffy, I'm askin' you to do somethin' for me." He said in that oddly light tenor drawl for such a big man as he rocked in time to the thunder he was producing, body tense with unreleased lightning.)

Buffy nodded warily up at Mike, his shadow engulfing her.

 _…there's a cloud above me and it seems to hide the way…_

(Mike's voice was Mexican radio late at night, fading in and out as the signals shifted through the stratosphere on nights when the Aurora Borealis danced over the desert. "…big dumb goat-roper done run away before he could…(crackle) …if something doesn't happen soon, all of us will fly apart because nothing human lasts long in the Maze…(sizzle) …parts of you, of me, of US... flying away, you got me?" The fingers of Mike's left hand abruptly slithered up and down the neck of the worn instrument, making it moan as he marched forward, large, booted feet planted firmly before her. Buffy's eyes followed them as he paused, head bobbing before he began marching backwards in time to the music he ripped from the bass…)  
 _  
…I'm going straight ahead, 'cause it's the only way I know, I want to leave the past, and leave just for today…_ ("What the Hell are you, really?" Buffy snarled, words Dopplering flatly in her ringing ears.)

 _Now then tell me baby, do you need my love?_

("What the Hail are YOU?" he responded in a long, slow jeering cracker drawl, right hand abruptly slapping the strings, left walking up the neck of the bass, a deep snarl amidst the swirl of canned Jimmy Page, "Me? I'm what silly little girls like you think they want until they learn the truth and settle for an accountant, a lawyer, or a doctor, organic groceries at three times the price, a McMansion, 2.5 kids, an' th' brand new SUV that goes with it –mebbe a itty-bitty li'l ol' rose tattoo by your cooch just to be edgy, babe?" Mike laughed derisively, black tears coursing down his sculpted red-stubbled cheeks, "The man who done discovered Elvis understood that. Made hi'self a whole lotta money off'n silly li'l rich girls like you– screamin', wettin' themselves over a man they couldn't have and couldn't handle if they ever did – all'em gladly buyin' his music with _daddy's_ money. Only you done fell outta THAT cradle. How's it feel to BE what you thought you wanted in a man after you done rode what you thought you wanted three times and they done dumped your burger flippin' ass in the dust like so much trash?")

 _Tell me baby, are you thinking of me?_

("Hey!" Buffy exclaimed, "Personal much?" What was it about this creature that drew and repelled her? Who seemed to know her even as she didn't know it?)

 _Tell me baby, what it is you need?_

("What kind of satisfaction guaranteed?" Steel teeth glinting like a sane Cheshire cat, the thing that called itself "Mike" sang mockingly down at her, leaning back, left hand free, right hand slapping the strings rhythmically before doubling over, fanning the strings, left back on the job, a half-stride forward toward her.)

("Help.") _Sitting in the gutter with my head wrapped in my hands_

 _I've been drinking all night, and I just can't stand the pain_ ("Help.")

 _It took an awful lot of trouble_ ("Help.") _just to make me understand_

 _Now it's clear to me, but will it ever be the same?_ ("Help!") _  
_  
("What the Hell are you talking about?" Buffy snapped, stepping closer, deeper into Mike's shadow, "Are you insane? And why are you spouting hokey old songs by the "The Firm" at me?")

 _Now then tell me baby, do you need my love?_

("'Cause I can, baby girl, 'cause I can." What wore Mike's face laughed, hands mechanically spilling thunder, shaking it's head, empty eye sockets closed.)

 _…tell me baby, are you thinking of me? What kind of satisfaction guaranteed?_ ("Help.")

("Because you're crazy?" Buffy pulled off one cross trainer and hurled it at him so that it bounced off his forehead. The shadow man paused, grinning down at her once more, all disarming country cornball charm, weeping black sockets narrowed speculatively, "Yeah. Alla me is. Raina didn't know half of what she was gettin' into when she got involved, not a'tall! What you gonna do about it, babe?")

 _Now then tell me baby, do you need my love?_

("No, no!" Buffy stumbled backwards, the shadow wrapping itself around her as "Mike" juddered and flickered before her on the stage.)

 _Tell me baby, what it is you need?_

("Help!") _What kind of satisfaction guaranteed?_

("Raina done got me, though. Didja know she can belch the alphabet? Didja know she kept me from killin' myself? Only she never knew? Didja know the bitch only saved my life just so she could destroy it?" It laughed, shaking it's head, red bandanna flickering, "Ohhhhh, baby. Didja know, little girl, you done brought YOUR insanity in here WITH you?")

 _…I rode through the night, and halfway through the day_

 _…the only thing I knew, was that I had to get away_

("God-dammit, are y'all deaf? Help!")

("What?" Buffy steadied herself, the dark supporting her even as it wrapped itself around her like hot, wet silk, "I did not!")

 _…what kind of satisfaction guaranteed…_

("Mike" flickered violently. Now it was Adam that stood over her; and Buffy, though she knew it was dead, that she had killed it herself with the help of her two best friends, screamed.)

 _Tell me baby, tell me baby, tell me baby, do you need my love?_

 _Now that I'm here, yeah, do you need, do you need my love?_


	66. Navigating in the Dark

There was a cry by her feet. Raina, steering the mortar and pestle turned gyrocopter over the endless dark maze with it's half-seen endless angular twists and turns and occasional pale green flashes of lightning, looked down. Sweating, the sleeping girl who'd followed her into this bizarro world turned in on itself stirred against the effeminate man who had somehow come with her, hands clenching and unclenching.

Pale green light flashed off of his bent, crooked old-fashioned glasses and matted curls as shrugging, he looked up at Raina, a faint smile that was almost a smirk on his narrow face. Raina returned her attention to navigating – whatever was going on there could take care of itself. She looked up and ahead, in the dim gray light she could make out the mirror image of the maze spread beneath overhead and had no idea where she was taking them.

Piloting a Navy chopper had been relatively easy: there was constant radio contact, radar, maps, and other navigational tools if the weather suddenly went bad. Then she could land and wait it out. Once the weather improved, there were always landmarks; bridges, mountain ranges, rivers, lakes, _whatever,_ should technology fail her. Fog? No problem! If she couldn't rise above it, Raina could always skim along until she found a road and work it from there. Hell, there'd even been that one time in Alaska when she'd been forced to navigate by following an oil pipeline, scaring the hell out of God knows how many caribou and one polar bear in the process, all thanks to a faulty radio and tower ops with no sense of direction. But this place? This place? Holy shit!

This place was nothing but mile after mile of identical shadowy twists and turns without so much as a Howard Johnson's roof to home in on for an unscheduled coffee break! Even the green lightning never repeated itself even as it zig-zagged into infinity!

There was a tap on her shoulder.

Arms straining to keep the pestle whizzing overhead and the mortar aloft, Raina glanced behind her, thinking that one of her passengers wanted something.

Startled, she fumbled, causing the whirring pestle and the mortar to careen from side to side even as it dropped in midair, only to catch herself so that it leveled out, the scarred green marble of the mortar delicately caressing the mirror-still water beneath it which blackly reflected the maze with it's tangles of passages overhead, rippling out in silent circles with each kiss.

Mike stood behind her, truncated finger held to his lips, eyes dark hollows in the dim green-gray-black light. Raina blinked, eyelids heavy, the pain in her foot and her arms a distant ache belonging to somebody else.

Grinning with fangs that were somehow un-threatening, Mike gently but firmly took the pestle from her hands so that the stone basin they stood within gradually slowed, easing itself silently into the water, ripples breaking up the overhead maze around them. Tossing the pestle into the water with a soundless splash, he took her hand.

The world flipped over, and they were standing in a frosty, moonlit landscape.

Only, it wasn't Mike holding Raina's hand, but a gangling shirtless adolescent in patched, worn-out overalls and work boots.

In her arms she cradled a too still baby wrapped in a hospital blanket.


End file.
